Endings and Beginnings
by randomAnon
Summary: As Sawamura's first year is coming to an end, he realises that many of the members he grew so close to are about to leave. How will he pay his debts towards the team that had supported him through his rough start? [there's a pairing Sawamura x some guy]
1. Ch1 - Working and Gaming

**Endings and Beginnings**

**Summary**: As Sawamura's first year is coming to an end, he realises that many of the members he grew so close to are about to leave. How will he pay his debts towards the team that had supported him through his rough start? [there's a pairing Sawamura x some guy]

**A/N**: lame title, but my track record on story titles hasn't been good so far...anyways, enjoy :)  
>Don't know where this story's heading...we'll see how it goes :

**Warning**: Sawamura's gonna be paired with some guy, but won't get into any deep descriptions, just fluff.

**Disclaimer**: don't own anything related to DNA. If this plot already exists on (or is similar to another story), my apologies, I should just buy a lottery ticket and try my luck there instead :P

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 1 - Working and Gaming<strong>

Practice ended as the sun vanished from the horizons. Everyone headed for the showers and ultimately to their dorms to relax before going to sleep.

Sawamura looked around to make sure no one was around before he jumped on his bike and rode off into the darkness. Having ran everyday and with a tire no less, Sawamura made it to his destination in no time. Parking his bike in the back alley, he reached to open the back door. A slight ring from the hanging bell was heard as the door opened, allowing the pitcher to enter.

"Sawamura-chan, good evening!" the manager of the cafe greeted him. "Tonight's special, it's going to be younger sibling night!~" a man said happily.

"Sounds fun manager!" Sawamura shouted back with a wide grin and eyes sparkling with joy. His hands were clutching the countertop in anticipation.

"You're so wonderful, so full of energy!~" The manager replied, also with the sparkle of joy welled deep within his eyes. "Your uniform's in the back, get changed and meet me back out here."

Sawamura ran to the back change room and found a butler like uniform. He loved his part time job. _'What can be better than making money while playing around...' _he thought to himself as he quickly changed. But as he did, he heard the door open behind him.

"Manager, what's up?"

"I couldn't wait, I wanted to tell you now. Tonight, you're going to play the role of the shy little brother! Can you do it?" the manager, enthusiastic at the theme, asked the pitcher.

"Manager-onii-samaaaaaa...is...is this...what you're looking for?" Sawamura said in a kiddish whisper while putting his hands behind his back, head looking down towards his foot that was pivoting around one spot.

"WONDERFULLLL~" the manager almost fainted.

"IS IT?" Sawamura replied with more enthusiasm.

"I'm glad you came here looking for part time work!~~" the manager replied, before the two of them broke into laughter.

"Anyways, a group of guys came in, can you work with onii-chans?" the manager asked.

"Of course!"

"Great! Well, finish up in here and come out to greet your guests. Oh here's some menu's so you can head directly to them, they're on table 5."

"That's the bigger table...there's a lot of them then?"

"Yeah, there's seven of them, isn't that great?" the manager responded in his usual up tone voice.

"I'LL DO MY BEST, MANAGER!" Sawamura responded.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Back to after practice<strong>_

"Yuki, isn't that Sawamura sneaking out?" Ryosuke asked the captain. Tetsuya, Miyuki, Chris, Jun, Masuko and Kuramochi all took a look at the location Ryosuke was pointing at.

"Yeah, what's that brat doing, going out this late at night?" Jun questioned.

"Kahahah, he must be meeting with that Wakana girl." Kuramochi replied. With that statement, they all looked at each other and quickly ran to follow the pitcher. They got on their bikes and followed suite, but the pitcher was fast.

"Damn he's fast..." Jun shouted as the seven put more strength into pedaling their bikes.

"Sawamura-chan has been running every day with tires." Masuko replied, which everyone acknowledged.

Eventually to their dismay, they lost sight of him as he disappeared around the corner.

"Ummm, it looks like we lost him..." Miyuki spoke the obvious.

"I saw him coming this way, he shouldn't be too far!" Kuramochi shouted.

"Let's forget about it, we probably lost him and it's dark anyways." Ryosuke noted.

As they started to turn around on their bikes, Masuko caught sight of the cafe.

"Since we're all out here, why don't we just go relax in that cafe?" Masuko calmly said.

Everyone looked towards Tetsuya, as if awaiting for permission. He stared back at them with his usual serious look.

"We have late practice tomorrow, so why not. We can't stay too late though." Tetsuya obviously wanted to visit the cafe, especially after losing out on seeing Sawamura's girlfriend, but had to keep up the captain appearance.

"Haha, you're the best Tetsu-senpai!" Miyuki shouted.

The group of seven headed into the cafe. As they entered, the bell to the door gave a little ring and they were met by an overzealous man.

"Good evening gentlemen! Welcome to my cafe, you're in luck today, we have a theme going on tonight!" the manager greeted.

"Really?" Jun stared down at the manager. _'Great, we should have gone somewhere else...'_ he mentally chastised their choice. He looked at the door planning his escape, but a hand over his shoulder stopped him. Ryosuke gave Jun a smile that emanated death if Jun were to ditch everyone.

"Yes! Our waiters and waitresses are playing the role of the younger sibling! If you don't mind, please write your name and how you'd like to be addressed on these name tags!" the manager handed out sticker tags to the group.

The seven of them stared at the sticker, obviously some awkwardness floating in the atmosphere around them.

_'Whaaa, I'll just write my name on it...'_ they all thought in unison as they scribbled their names onto their sticker.

"Please show me your name tags." the manager requested with a big smile.

The baseball team members placed it in front of the manager, who gave a displeased look.

"Now now, you guys aren't fun, let me change it up."

First up was Tetsuya. "Hmmm Tetsuya is it..." the manager looked at the baseball captain.

"Oh his first name is Yuki." Ryosuke spoke up with a wide grin. Tetsuya gave Ryosuke a glare warning him to not mess around, but Ryosuke waved it off with a retorting smile.

"Excellent!" he manager scribbled a name on Tetsuya's sticker and handed it back to him. He then went through each person. "Please stick it on your shirt. I'm going to head back to get your waiter! Please have a seat while you wait!~" the manager scurried to the back of the cafe.

"Great, we have to play this stupid game." Jun stated as the group sat down at their table.

"This could be fun..." Chris calmly said, which shocked everyone as they all stared at him. Realising what he said, he immediately diverted his eyes away from the group.

"Yeah, let's just play along since we're here already?" Ryosuke questioned Tetsuya, which resulted in darts being fired at him from Tetsuya's glare.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Back at the cafe change room<strong>_

Sawamura finished changing not long after the manager left. He was dressed in a butler's suit, but a bit ruffled, with half his dress shirt sticking out and buttons semi done. _'Hmmm I think this could do for the helpless little brother look.' _He checked the mirror once more before heading out.

As he walked through the door, he had his head drooped down with the menus covering the front of his head. He had clear sight of the ground and started walking until he was in front of table 5.

"Ummmm..." Sawamura started, while still hiding behind the menus.

The whole table's attention fell on the waiter.

_'Great...this lame game is starting...and we have this dumbass kid serving us...'_ Jun mentally screamed again.

_'Haha, this is hilarious, is the kid suppose to be some helpless little brother?' _Kuramochi thought.

"Ummmm...onii-sama...here's your..." as he put the menus down on the table, his sentence was interrupted by the sight of those in front of him.

"Waaaah..." the pitcher screamed realising it was the Seidou baseball team members as shock plastered into his face. This caught the attention of the whole cafe.

"Sawamura-chan...is there a problem?" The manager asked across the room as he made his way to the table. Sawamura turned around to look at the manager, his face full of fear.

"Now now Sawamura-chan, you don't need to be scared, your onii-samas are here to protect you."

At this moment, a few of the baseball members started to laugh.

"See your onii-samas are laughing, there's nothing to be scared of." the manager comforted the teen, while inwardly praising Sawamura for putting on the great act. _'Wow Sawamura-chan, you're good at this...'_ the manager thought in amazement.

_'Managerrrrr...if only you knew what they're laughing at...' _Sawamura thought as he inwardly cried. From the side vision, he caught a glimpse of Chris laughing too. _'Not you too Chris-senpai?!'_

"Awww look how cute Sawamura-chan is...now now...greet your onii-samas properly." The manager commented harmlessly which caused Sawamura's jaw to drop. At this moment, the table erupted into a fit of chuckles as they tried to calm themselves down.

"O-o-onii-samas...here's your...menus..." Sawamura spoke up hesitantly as he handed the menus out while he tried to shy his face away.

"Sawamura...chan...is it? Shouldn't you greet your onii-sans one by one?" Ryosuke spoke up, obviously enjoying the show.

"Kahahaha yeah Bakamura." Kuramochi shouted.

Sawamura shot daggers into the two of them as he put all his might into not exploding at his senpais.

Glancing at the person to his left, eyes fixated on the name tag, Sawamura started his roll call.

"Chris-onii-san...here's your menu." Sawamura bowed as he handed the menu to Chris. _'Hmmm this isn't so bad...'_

"Jun...a-aniki..." Sawamura stared at Jun confirming that the honourific fit him well.

"Ma...masu-onii-chan..." Masuko's lips went flat as he blushed from hearing Sawamura calling him.

"Miyuki-nii" Miyuki gave a big grin as if saying that he could get use to it.

As Sawamura was about to move on, Miyuki spoke up, "Sawamura-chan, I couldn't hear you."

Sawamura turned his head immediately at the offending words, face in displeasure. The pitcher grabbed the menu back from Miyuki, leaned over the table and pressed the menu against Miyuki's chest. "MI-YU-KI-NII..." he semi-shouted in the catcher's ears.

"Ouch Sawamura-chan, why are you so rough...you hurt Miyuki-nii's fingers...I think you should kiss it to make me feel better..." Miyuki continued to tease, the whole table erupted in the sight of Sawamura turning beet red from the comment.

"W-w-wh-wha-at..." Sawamura tried to say.

"Hahaha, I'm joking." Miyuki waved his hand up and down. "Please continue."

Sawamura cringed at what just happened. _'I'll get you back one day...'_ he thought as he moved onto the next person.

"Kura-onii-t...t-tann"

"That's right Bakamura!" Kuramochi repsonded.

"Ryo-nii-chan" Sawamura said this with confidence. _'At least Ryo-nii-san fits well here.' _

Lastly, Sawamura looked towards the captain. "Tet..." he started off, but realised that wasn't what was written. "Yu..." Sawamura paused squinting his eyes to make sure he was reading the name tag correctly. "...Yu...ki...onii...ch-chama..." Sawamura broke into laughter with the rest of the table following him. The captain glared ice daggers into Sawamura, which caused the pitcher to immediately stop laughing.

After a minute, Sawamura took their orders and disappeared for a good while. Upon returning and giving everyone their drinks and food, he immediately turned around to step away.

"That's it otouto-kun, you're going to leave your onii-san here alone?" Miyuki spoke up in a sad sorrowful voice, while putting a piece of cake in his mouth.

"Miyuki!" Sawamura spoke up, until he saw Miyuki pointing to his name tag with a wide grin.

_'So you want to play eh?' _Sawamura cursed Miyuki in his mind._ 'I'll play with you...'_

"Miyuki-nii..." Sawamura corrected himself in a quite frail voice as he grasped his left hand on top of his right arm while looking down on the floor. "Don't pick on me..." he said, barely audiable, as his face started to become red, obviously still not use to playing the weak little brother in front of his senpais.

"Why are you shy in front of your brother's Sawamura-chan!" Jun scolded the pitcher. Sawamura shot Jun a glare.

"Now now Sawamura-chan, you shouldn't get mad at Jun-aniki." Masuko joined in.

"That's right Sawamura, you should apologise to Jun." Tetsuya spoke up, which immediately caused Sawamura to jump.

Standing there, at a loss for words from the tirade of criticism, he gave up and folded in. "I'm sorry...Jun-aniki..." Sawamura said in a meek voice, his head looking down as if he were a little kid regretting the wrong doings he just did.

"You don't seem sorry...do you want us to get mad at you?" Kuramochi interrupted.

_'I'll show you all!' _Sawamura thought as he stepped up his game.

*sniff sniff* Sawamura started to sniff as he bowed his head downwards. Then out of everyone's surprise and shock, Sawamura turned on the waterworks. His left hand went up his eyes and started to rub them, while his right arm wrapped around his abdomen, making himself look frail.

"Jun-aniki...Kura-onii-tan...Chris-onii-san...Masu-onii-chan...Ryo-nii-chan...Miyiki-nii...Tet...Yuki-onii-chama...Sawamura's sorry for being a bad little brother *sniff sniff* I won't leave you guys, so please don't be angry at me...*sniff sniff*...I...*sniff*...I just wanted to get some cookies so we can sit together and enjoy our time." tears started to drip down his face as he collapsed onto the floor, arm wiping the tears from his eyes.

Unbeknownst to the baseball members and Sawamura, the whole cafe was quietly watching the drama unfold. The seven baseball players were stunned; they didn't expect Sawamura to be able to pull something like this off.

"Onii-samas I'm sorry, don't hate Sawamura..." Sawamura said again in a weak trembling voice, but enough for the quiet cafe to hear. The pitcher looked up with a tear streaked face. As the attention of the whole cafe was closely watching the glistening teary orbs, Sawamura secretly slipped a small bottle of water, he used to fake the tears, into his pocket.

The manager quickly ran over to capitalize on the event. "Sawamura-chan, your brothers don't hate you. Why don't you give them each a hug and make up?"

_'MANAGER! WHYYYYY...' _Sawamura thought as he was stunned at hearing the suggestion.

"How about you start with Yuki-onii-chama?" the manager suggested as the manager helped the pitcher back onto his feet.

The whole table turned their gaze to Tetsuya.

As Sawamura and Tetsuya were about to object, the manager pushed the pitcher towards Tetsuya. Losing his balance, Sawamura fell forward, arms wide open and landed on top of Tetsuya with his arms around the captain.

Out of reflex, Tetsuya opened his arms to catch the falling pitcher, which ended up in an embrace as the two collided. Tetsuya was stunned, frozen in his seat as he felt the warm body hugging him.

Suddenly flashes were seen as a couple members took pictures of the moment.

Sawamura realised what was happening and immediately pushed himself off Tetsuya.

"Manager! That's not funny!" Sawamura chastised as he heard laughter coming from the manager and the other six baseball players.

"Yuki, I've never seen you so red." Ryosuke commented as he patted the captain's shoulders.

"Hahaha, did that feel good?" The team members all shouted as Tetsuya and Sawamura's face grew even redder.

"Calm down Sawamura-chan, see everyone's having fun, it feels like a family doesn't it?" the manager spoke in attempt to calm the jumpy teen.

"...family..." came a whisper out of Sawamura's lips.

Suddenly tears started to roll down Sawamura's face as sniffs came about.

"Oioi Sawamura, why are you crying? We're just joking around..." Miyuki realised that they may have gone too far.

"No...sorry...it's nothing..." Sawamura whimpered out.

"What do you mean it's nothing, there's obviously something wrong!" Jun pressed forward.

"No, it's just...what the manager said...it feels like a family doesn't it? Even though I've only been in the team for less than a year, it already feels like a family. Being able to play with everyone, to be on the same team, to depend on everyone...that's what family does right?" Sawamura started to rub his eyes clear of the tears. "But...but...you guys are about to graduate... "

It suddenly clicked in everyone's mind. _'He's the type that values his teams...that's right...I heard he cried as he left his old team behind...'_

Miyuki got up and walked up to Sawamura. "Remember what I said?"

Sawamura looked at the second year catcher confused.

Miyuki then pressed his fist against Sawamura's chest. "It's what's in here that matters. As long as you remember everyone, the family will always be with you."

"Miyuki, when did you learn to talk like that? All this talk is making me feel sick." Jun said while diverting his gaze away.

" Sawamura-chan's just trying to tell us his feelings." Masuko replied.

"That's right Sawamura, we'll always be with you." Chris spoke up giving the pitcher a smile.

"Bakamuraaa, stop thinking too much, your brain's going to explode hahaha." Kuramochi.

The third years nodded their heads in agreement, but obviously what the pitcher said was true. Their time on the Seidou baseball team was coming to an end, but for the next couple months, they wouldn't let that bother them.

Sawamura, in a state of dismay, yet gratefulness scratched the thought out of his mind. _'Yeah...we'll always be a family!'_

By the time they finished talking, they realised it was past midnight.

"It's this late already..." Tetsuya spoke up, looking at his watch. This gave everyone the hint to leave.

"Yeah it is...when does the cafe close?" Chris spoke up.

"Oh it closes 3am." Sawamura replied with a smile.

"Are you still working?" Ryosuke asked.

Sawamura realised his shift was ending in a couple minutes. "Yes I am, but I'll be ending soon."

With that said, everyone on the table pointed towards the sticker on their shirt.

"Shouldn't you greet us good night then, if you're ending soon?" Ryosuke asked pleasantly.

_'You guys aren't serious are you?' _Sawamura thought in shock. "But..." he replied, but was immediately interrupted.

"Aren't we a family Bakamura?" Kuramochi said.

"Ughhh...Good night onii-sama." Sawamura decided to just end it quick and forego calling each one. After his good nights, he immediately turned around to head to the back room.

"Hurry up, we'll be waiting outside for you Sawamura." Miyuki called out as the pitcher jogged to get changed.

"Manager, can we get the bill?" Ryosuke asked.

The manager walked over with the bill in hand. As the players reached into their pockets, they realised none of them brought their wallet.

"Oh great...what do we do now?" Jun asked.

"What if the manager forces us to work here?" Miyuki asked in concern.

At that instant, every had an image of themselves as the little feeble brothers in butler costumes.

"NO, no way I'm going to work here!" Jun said while crossing his arms.

There sat, the 7 baseball players, deep in thought, until a smile crept onto Ryosuke's face.

"Manager-san~" Ryosuke called out.

"Yes Ryo-nii-chan." the manager replied while walking over. This gave everyone on the table chills down their spines.

"Sawamura told us that he would take care of the bill." Ryosuke flatly stated.

The eyes of everyone on the table popped outwards as they realised what Ryosuke was trying to do. Yet everyone kept quiet, since they had no other cards to play.

"Really? Sawamura-chan did?" the manager was skeptical.

"Yeah, he said he'd take care of the bill cause he wanted to thank us, especially the third years for being with him this year, right?" Ryosuke turned to the others.

"Yeah yeah, we tried to tell him no, but you saw how he was and how much he valued our family. When he gave those puppy dog eyes to us, we just couldn't say no." Miyuki added.

"You know how it is when those puppy dog eyes come out..." Ryosuke added. The other members kept their mouths shut. They objected to this method, yet couldn't deny implementing it.

The manager was deep in thought and soon after, his stature melted. "I know what you mean, that kid has the purest heart, yet most devilish expressions. I understand, I can't deny him if he wants to do it."

Ryo jumped off his seat and put his hands on the manager's shoulders. "I know! Damn that devilish expression of his...my heart melted once I saw those eyes."

The manager vehemently agreed.

"Anyways, it seems you have guests, I think we'll wait outside for Sawamura so we don't bother you. Please tell him we're out there waiting for him ok?" Ryo added as he signaled everyone to get out of the cafe.

"Will do Ryo-nii-chan. Have a good night guys!" the manager stated before attending to the other guests.

"Manager, I'm going to leave now." Sawamura said as he came out of the back with his normal attire. He poised himself over the countertop awaiting his daily pay.

"You're such a nice boy Sawamura-kun! Paying for your senpai's. If only I had kohai's like you back when I was in school." The manager started to punch in numbers into the till. "That would be 43,000 yen, I'll round it to 40,000."

Sawamura stood there dumbfounded. He looked out the door and saw the group outside talking and laughing. _'I...I...'_ he didn't know what to think. He pulled out his wallet to only find 20,000 yen.

"Ummmm manager, I only have 20,000 with me, can you deduct the rest when I come work tomorrow?" He said meekly. He was fuming inside.

"That's fine Sawamura-chan!~ Well you better get going, your senpai's are waiting for you. Good nighttt~~" the cheerful man said.

Sawamura marched out the back door of the cafe, found his bike and started pedaling away. To his dismay, he had to ride by the front of the cafe, since there was no exit at the back, but he rode with all his might. He didn't want to see any of the people who ditched him with the bill.

"Hey Sawamura! Why are you riding away so fast?" Jun shouted.

The pitcher stopped with his back facing the group. "You think it's funny to have me pay the bill without asking don't you?" he angrily shouted with a hint of hurt within his voice. He quickly continued riding down the street, making a turn so that the group lost sight of him.

"Do you think he's angry at us?" Masuko asked.

But without a second thought, the seven of them started after the pitcher.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: There we have it, Chapter 1. Going to have more chapters to this story (although I contemplated on making this a one shot)...this could be the start of a down fall to this story lol

Will update in a couple weeks.


	2. Ch2 - Hurting and Comforting

**A/N**: thanks a lot for those who've reviewed this story!  
>This may be OOC (hopefully not). Excuse the mix up of using lastfirst names, just typed what seemed natural.  
>I have the next 3 chapters planned out with a goal in mind :)<p>

**Chapter 1 recap**: Seidou first stringers accidentally runs into Sawamura working at a cafe, lucky for them, it was little sibling night, so Sawamura played the little brother. At the end, the first stringers didn't have money to pay their bill, so they decided to have Sawamura pay for them (without Sawamura's knowledge). When the southpaw finds out, he gets mad and of course, hurt.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2 - Hurting and Comforting<strong>

Sawamura found himself at a dark secluded park. Wandering over to a set of swings, he fell onto the seat and slumped over. Without warning, tears started to drip down his face. Sniffs could be heard on occasion as he softly cried in the void of darkness.

Quiet whimpers could be heard in the desolated night skies surrounding the playground.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Back to the other members<strong>_

The other team members were frantically riding around the streets in search of the southpaw, but to their surprise and dismay, they bumped into someone else.

"Mei, what are you doing out so late?" Miyuki asked.

"Is that the way to greet me Kazyua? I could ask the same thing about you guys." He retorted.

"We're looking for Sawamura, the southpaw pitcher on our team... "

"What do you mean? Did he get lost?" Narumiya questioned in curiousity.

"No." Miyuki said assertively.

"Did you see him by any chance?" Tetsuya asked.

"Nope, haven't seen anyone cept you guys on the streets. Anyways, I'm gonna continue jogging." Narumiya turned around and went down the streets. He wasn't in the mood for making conversation with the group, or was he interested in the knowing about their business.

"Great, what now?" Kuramochi asked.

"We should really find him, it's late, he shouldn't be out here alone." Chris responded, in which everyone agreed. The group set off again, riding through the streets in hopes to find the pitcher.

As Narumiya made his way back to Inshiro, he heard quiet eerie sobs coming from a park. It was dark and it reminded him of scary movies where a lost crying child would be sitting in the midst of night. _'Could that be a ghost?'_ He opted to continue onwards, until he inadvertently ran into a bicycle.

_'Whaa, what idiot would put this here...hmmm could it be that southpaw's bike?'_ Narumiya looked over at the location from where the sobs were coming from and he could make out a figure of a teen sitting on the swings. _'Maybe it is him...I see that Miyuki made someone person cry.'_ Narumiya inwardly chastised the catcher. Reluctant at first, as he wanted to get back to his dorm, he eventually folded as his mind was engulfed with the curiosity of what could cause a usually joyful personality to crumble into tears.

He slowly approached the sobbing figure until he could make him out. _'It is Seidou's southpaw that everyone is looking for.'_ Narumiya confirmed as a smirk grew on his face. _'This could be fun.'_

Narumiya slowly crept around so that he came from behind the younger pitcher. Sawamura was too deep in his own sorrows to notice any noise around him. Without warning, Narumiya placed both hands on the pitcher's shoulders grasping them tightly.

"SAWAMURA" Narumiya shouted into the other pitcher's ear, following suite by a calmly asked question, "What are you doing?"

"AHHHH" The younger southpaw was caught off guard, with a loud scream, he loss balance and ultimately his face falling flat onto the ground.

"WHAT THE H..." he was about to finish his sentence until he saw who it was. "Narumiya...?" a half statement and half question left his lips.

"Yup, you know, it's late at night, dangerous for little boys to be playing at the park during this hour." Narumiya scorned while waving his finger at the younger pitcher.

"Who's a little boy? Leave me alone." Sawamura replied wiping the tears away from his eyes using his sleeves.

"Hahaha, are you crying? Does the little kid need a tissue?" Narumiya started cracking up upon seeing Sawamura's face. He continued to mimic Sawamura by rubbing his eyes.

"I said leave me ALONE" Sawamura shouted, swinging his arm in front of him.

Narumiya immediately caught Sawamura's arm in midair. His tone immediately changed into a serious one, "Yo, you have friends who are looking for you right now, who are worried about you...let's go back..."

"Friends? Haha, don't make me laugh." Sawamura bit his bottoms lips to prevent a sob from escaping. His eyes started to well up again.

Narumiya's expression changed as he realised he hit somewhere close to the target of the sorrows. "What did they do to you?" he questioned. _'Wait...why do I even care?'_

"Don't worry about it, let go of my arm and leave me alone." he gave Narumiya a glare.

Narumiya pulled Sawamura closer to him, "You obviously need to talk about it." He clenched his teeth while speaking.

Sawamura looked into the other southpaw's eyes and for a second he found comfort in them. _'I guess there's no harm in talking to someone else... '_ Sawamura gave a defeated look, although still reluctant. "Well, I went to work at the cafe today and to my surprise, the baseball team members came in. At first it was awkward, but I guess everything went well." Sawamura started, while Narumiya listened intently.

_'This seems interesting.'_ Narumiya mused as he continued to listen.

"Anyways, once my shift ended, I went to the back to change. When I came out, the manager said my friends told him that I would pay for them."

"Ok, so what, you're pissed that they're making you pay for them?" Narumiya scoffed at the other pitcher.

"If they asked me before hand, I'd be fine, but they did it behind my back." Sawamura tried to defend himself.

"Well you don't need to cry over something like that." Narumiya wasn't doing a good job in comforting the other pitcher, if he even tried.

"It's not that, I took a part time job so that I could make money..."

"Well that's taken, you really need money?" Narumiya interrupted.

Sawamura was getting frustrated, it was getting harder for him to breathe as his chest constricted tighter from Narumiya's never ending tirade of questions and retorts.

"Well, the third years are graduating soon, so they'll be leaving Seidou and I...I wanted to get them something...get them all something...but seeing as they would just dump the bill on me without my knowledge...I don't...I don't know why it hurts..." Sawamura started sniffing.

Narumiya was dumbfounded. He didn't know what to say.

"It's just that...maybe they don't care about me...I don't know...heh...actually ignore it all, it sounds stupid...don't worry about it..." Sawamura wiped his eyes. He had no idea why this was getting under his skin so much.

"Hey, nothing is stupid. Your intentions were good, you wanted to get your senpais something to thank them, but instead, they used you, the money you worked so hard for." Narumiya tried to comfort him by reinforcing the Seidou pitcher's thoughts. "...the money you wanted to use for them, for their happiness. I guess you treat them more like family members than they do you?" Narumiya blurted out, not knowing the consequences of his last statement.

"...family..." Sawamura whispered as his eyes welled up again and he broke out crying. "That's...that's right...I thought...we were...a...a...family...but would family use...me like that..." the words escaped between sniffs and sobs.

Narumiya stood looming over the crying pitcher. His face twitched in unpleasantness as he was at a loss for what to do. Slowly, as if it were a reflex but with much hesitation, he crouched closer to the other pitcher and put his arms around Sawamura. His hands rested at the back of the younger pitcher's head as he pulled it against his chest, and started stroking the younger pitcher in attempt to soothe the hurt.

"It's ok, I'm sure they didn't mean it, don't think too much of it, we'll go clear up the confusion." Narumiya whispered into Sawamura's ears. Narumiya was confused at his actions, but for some reason, he didn't mind doing it. He felt some attraction to the seemingly feeble teen in front of him and all he wanted to do was soothe the younger teen's pain.

After a few minutes, the sobs quiet down. Once Narumiya was sure that Sawamura was calm, he got a bit of distance between them.

"Let's head back to the dorms." Narumiya said as he looked into the other's eyes.

Reluctant at first, Sawamura eventually gave a nod. The two started to head towards the Seidou dorms.

"Thanks a lot for everything Narumiya-senpai." Sawamura spoke up."Have a good night."

Narumiya was dumbfounded. "What? I'm following you back to your dorms and giving your senpais a good talking to."

"But it's a far walk from here and it's getting late." Sawamura didn't want to cause any problems.

"I've made up my mind, I'm coming back with you." Narumiya reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. Sawamura watched intently as to what the other pitcher could be doing.

"Oi, Miyuki? I found him, you guys head back to the dorms, I'll bring him back." was all Narumiya said before he hung up. He didn't even give time for the opposite end to reply.

After putting the cell back into his pocket, he jumped onto the bicycle. "Hey, hop onto the seat and hold me tight." Narumiya spoke out then wandering off into his own musings. _'Hmmm, hold me tight, that didn't sound right...whaaa, why am I having these thoughts?!' _

"But...you don't need to...and it's my bike..." Sawamura tried to convince the Inashiro pitcher that he could go back himself.

"Just get on." Narumiya pulled Sawamura towards the bike's seat.

Sawamura reluctantly got onto the bike, sat on the seat, then grabbed onto Narumiya's shoulders.

"Ready?" Narumiya asked, but before Sawamura could reply, the other pitcher started cycling at a faster than expected speed.

"WAAAH" the younger southpaw shouted as he lost grip.

Upon feeling hands slipping off his shoulders, Narumiya immediately stopped, causing Sawamura to crash into Narumiya's back. Sawamura immediately wrapped his arms around Narumiya's torso for dear life, his face pressed flushed against Narumiya's back.

Narumiya, blushing at the feeling of being hugged and their current positions, continued to pedal towards the dorms in silence, all the whilst, Sawamura was clutching the other pitcher for dear life.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Chapter 3 should come in a few days to a week. Might have another cafe scene :)


	3. Ch3 - Misunderstanding and Understanding

**A/N:** Thanks a lot for the reviews! Didn't know I would get the reactions I got by having Mei in the story lol

Sorry for changing the narration's naming convention. Going to call Mei as Mei (not Narumiya, as I did in Chapter 2)...seems more natural :/

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><p><strong>Chapter 2 Recap<strong>: Mei found Sawamura in the dark park crying. He goes to comfort the younger pitcher to find the cause agony. Uncovering the reason for the cause of tears glistening over the pitcher's once bright orbs, Mei sets out for justice.

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><p><strong>Chapter 3 - Misunderstanding and Understanding<strong>

"Sawamura's heading back right now?" Chris asked Miyuki.

"Yeah, Mei's taking him back right now." the other catcher replied.

The seven first string members were sitting in Sawamura's dorm room, with worried faces, waiting for the pitcher to return. All was silent as each knew what they did wrong.

"Arghhhh, when's he gonna be back." Jun shouted in frustration.

* * *

><p><strong>Seidou Dorm<strong>

Mei pulled up into the Seidou dorm entrance and immediately Sawamura got off.

"Narumiya-senpai, thank you." Sawamura bowed thanking the other pitcher.

"What? You seem to be greeting me off...I'm not going to let you go alone, I'm coming with you."

Sawamura was surprised, but felt happy that someone would be there with him.

The two quietly walked towards Sawamura's room.

"You okay Sawamura?" Mei asked as they reached the door. Mei placed his hand on Sawamura's shoulders to reassure the younger pitcher. Mei leaned in next to Sawamura's ears, "Don't worry, I'm here with you, I'll give them a good talking to." Mei squeezed the younger pitcher's shoulders to indicate that he was here for him.

Sawamura nodded in response. Slowly, Mei opened the door to the dorm room revealing the others. Everyone looked up in unison, faces full of guilt. Mei walked in first, but a reluctant Sawamura stayed behind. Noticing that no one was following him, Mei reached his hand out to grab the other pitcher's and pulled him in.

"Sawamura", "Sawamura-kun", "Sawamura-chan" was heard throughout the room as everyone called Sawamura's name at the same time.

"Sawamura, we're sorry, we were just joking around. We forgot our wallets. Sorry, we should have asked you first." Ryosuke quickly spoke up.

"Sorry Sawamura. We really forgot our wallets, here's the money we owed." Miyuki interjected.

"We're sorry." everyone said in unison and bowed down.

Sawamura and Mei were dumbfounded, staring at the group. There was a long awkward silence until Mei spoke up, which caused the seven prostrating teens to look up at the Inashiro pitcher.

"Hahaha and here you were crying over the matter." Mei shouted, while lifting his hand up and slapping it on Sawamura's back. "You should have cleared it up with them before putting on the waterworks!" Mei laughed.

_'Sawamura really cried?'_ the second and third years thought and immediately they thought of the puppy eyes back in the cafe. As if on queue, they all bowed their head and shouted again.

"SORRY SAWAMURA-KUN!"

Sawamura stood there stood there not knowing what to say.

Mei felt the pitcher's unease. "You guys better be sorry, better not do that next time, right Sawamura?"

Sawamura snapped out of his daze and nodded his head.

"Then that's that, we're all good now right?"

Again, Sawamura nodded his head. After the others saw Sawamura acknowledge, they too nodded their heads.

"Well then, it's getting really late, you guys have practice tomorrow right? You should all get some sleep." Mei quickly said to end the night of awkwardness. He started to walk out the door when someone stopped him.

"Mei, you're heading back to Inashiro right now?" Miyuki asked.

"Yup, is there something wrong?" Mei asked the catcher.

"You should stay over tonight, give your team a call and tell them you'll be here. It's too late for you to go home alone." Tetsuya noted.

"That's right, you can sleep in this dorm room tonight Narumiya-chan." Masuko said.

With agreement, everyone once again apologized to Sawamura and made their ways into their rooms for the night leaving Masuko, Kuramochi, Sawamura and Mei in the room. The lights went out shortly thereafter. Masuko and Kuramochi immediately fell asleep, leaving the two pitchers to stare at the dark ceiling.

"Sawamura, you still up?" Mei asked.

"Yeah...you can't sleep?" a soft reply came.

"I'll eventually fall asleep, just don't know when." Mei was dying of boredom from his sleepless night. He didn't have much to talk about with the younger southpaw.

"Thanks a lot for tonight Narumiya-senpai."

"You can call me Mei, all my friends do..."

"Friend..." Sawamura stated in a dumbfounded daze.

"What?! I'm not your friend now? And after all I've done to help you..." Mei whispered in a reprimanding tone.

Sawamura immediately jumped into a sitting position on his bed, looked at Mei and started apologising vehemently in quiet whispers. "No...I didn't mean that, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it...I...I..." Sawamura was at a loss for words.

"Calm down, I'm just joking." a chuckle escaped. _'Hmmm, he's pretty cute when he's all jumpy...'_

"Mei...senpai..." Sawamura's whisper echoed through the dark room.

"Oi, Mei is fine." Mei responded. There was a long silence after that, but Mei broke it again, although he wasn't sure if the other pitcher had already fallen asleep.

"So...what were you doing out so late at night" Mei asked.

"I was doing a part time job at a cafe around the area." Sawamura subconsciously responded.

"I thought you can't work part-time?"

"Uhhhh..." Sawamura realised what he accidently let out. "...please don't tell anyone, it's a secret." He then realised that he didn't have the other seven first strings swear an oath to not tell anyone about him working part-time. _'I have to make sure they don't say anything...'_

"I won't..." a tired Mei replied and shortly thereafter, he heard the soft rhythmic breathing pattern of the other pitcher, which engulfed him into a state of slumber.

* * *

><p><strong>Morning<strong>

By late morning, the baseball club members started waking up. Luckily it was a Sunday and practice was to start after lunch. Sawamura sat atop his bed, took a stretch and yawned. He took a glance towards where Mei slept, but noticed that Mei was gone. _'Mei..._' His senpais were still sleeping and atop the table was a note.

Sawamura jumped down and headed over to the table.

'Sawamura, gotta head back for baseball practice. Took your bike, hope you don't mind. Will return it to you tonight. -Mei' Sawamura stared at the message trying to comprehend it in his just awoken daze. _'Wait...I'm working tonight...I guess he can just leave it here while I'm gone...'_ but his face looked depressed. He wanted to see Mei again and thank him, but he couldn't skip work to meet the other pitcher tonight. He looked at the note and noticed something scribbled on the bottom, 'P.S. if you ever need to cry again, I'll be there for you ;) haha'. Sawamura's face turned red and his hands quickly crumpled the paper into a tiny ball.

For the rest of the day, Sawamura was in and out of it. Practice went on, lunch, dinner and eventually night fell. The whole day was a daze, a regular routine for him. Once everyone was let off for the day, he snuck out and headed for his part time job. He did leave Miyuki the task of thanking Mei for returning the bike, if and when he did.

"Manager, I'm here!" Sawamura shouted from the back as he got dressed for work in the back room. Finishing up his change of clothes, he stepped out of the back room to greet the manager.

"Sawamura-chan. Good evening. Business as usual today." The manager greeted the teen.

"Oh, here's the remainder of the owing amount." Sawamura handed the manager the money owed and started work.

Thirty minutes into his shift, the front door bell rang and a certain someone, that Sawamura wasn't expecting, stepped in.

"Mei!" Sawamura shouted, the pitcher, now waiter, exclaimed in happiness.

"This is where you work?" Mei asked in surprise.

"What are you doing here?"

"I was on my way to returning your bike and decided to just stop by some cafe. Didn't expect to see you here." Mei said while checking out the nicely dressed southpaw waiter in front of him from top to bottom. _'He's cute...'_ the thought crossed Mei's mind, but immediately he shook it off.

"Hi there! You seem to be acquainted with Sawamura-chan here." The manager came to greet Mei.

"Sawamura-CHAN?!" Mei started to laugh while pointing at his index finger at Sawamura's blushing face.

The manager turned over to look at his employee "How about you take him to a table and serve him for the night Sawamura-chan?"

"Serve me? Hahah this is going to be great!" Mei continued his tirade of laughter.

"Yes manager!" Sawamura said with a smile while grabbing a menu and Mei's index finger to lead him to an empty table. He twisted the elder pitcher's finger a bit to signify his unhappiness at being laughed at.

"Mei-sen..." Sawamura started.

"Mei..." Mei shot the now waiter a dirty look.

"Mei...please have a seat here. Here's your menu, I'll give you a minute, be right back." Sawamura ran off to attend another table while Mei got some time with the menu.

Mei stared at the menu, unsure what he wanted. _'What to get...'_ he thought as he looked upwards to see a happily laughing waiter chatting with other guests. A hint of jealousy glazed his face, but his jealousy was quelled upon seeing the heartwarming smile on the younger southpaw's face. Mei's gaze was fixated on Sawamura and slowly he became lost in thought, just staring. _'Hurry up and come back here...'_

"...Mei, hey Mei, you there?" Sawamura bent over so that he was face to face with the other.

"Whaa..." Mei jumped back slightly as he realised how close Sawamura was. His heart was beating fast.

"What would you like?" a clueless waiter asked as he blinked a few times.

Scrambling to recompose himself, Mei pointed at whatever was on the page."Ummmm, I'll take this."

"Sure! Thanks." Sawamura took the order and ran off.

Mei continued his gaze at the busy waiter as he ran in and out of the kitchen with dishes and attending to various tables. A smirk appeared as he found it amusing on how hard the pitcher was working.

Before long, Sawamura came back to Mei's table with a dish in hand.

"Here's your omurice Mei!" the waiter cheerfully placed the plate in front of the other. "What would you like me to write on it?" he said while holding a ketchup bottle.

"Uhhh my name is fine." he said sheepishly.

Sawamura then hovered the plate and started to write Mei's name onto the egg. "There we go!"

Mei looked at the plate. "Mei...CHAN?!" he asked in surprise, his face was flushed red.

"Sorry, manager wanted me to add chan for everyone..." Sawamura stared at Mei.

"Oh no no, it's fine." Mei started to dig in to the plate of rice to get his mind off to another thought.

"Anyways, I think Mei-chan sounds cute!" the always direct and clueless pitcher stated. "Enjoy!"

Mei almost choked on the rice as those words came out of Sawamura's mouth. _'He said cute...'_ A goofy grin showed up on his face. _'You got me, well played Sawamura...well played...'_

Mei was left alone to enjoy his meal, but as the busy waiter walked by the table, Mei, out of curiosity, quickly asked, "Sawamura, when do you end work?"

Sawamura turned around to look at Mei, then glanced at the clock. "In about one hour." he replied before he started to walk away again, but stopped midway. "By the way, you can call me Eijun."

"Ei...jun..." Mei mumbled. _'Did I just move to the first base...'_, but he shook the thought out of his head. _'What am I thinking...everyone calls me Mei, does that mean everyone's at first base with me...baaaakaaa...'_

Once Sawamura was in the clear, Mei slowed down with his meal. He slowly ate while watching Sawamura run around the cafe, a smirk came on his face as he saw the other pitcher's antics while running around.

As the hour drew near, Mei eventually finished his omurice as Sawamura ended his shift. Paying for his meal, Mei then waited at the front entrance. He got a mouthful of cheerful talk from the manager as he patiently waited. _'Come on Sawamura...I'm going to be dead soon if you don't hurry up...'_

"Manager! I'm going to head out." Sawamura cheerfully noted as he walked to the front of the store.

"Good work tonight Sawamura-chan. Here's your pay for the night." the manager handed Sawamura's pay.

"Thanks! Have a good night." Sawamura bowed. Both he and Mei walked out of the cafe and stood out in the cool night starry sky.

"Hey Sawamura, here's your bike, sorry for taking it this morning, I would have been late for practice if I didn't." Mei tried to explain.

"No worries Mei! I should be the one apologising for bothering you yesterday."

Mei handed the bike back to Sawamura, who took it back.

"You don't need it to get back to school?" Sawamura asked.

"Nope, this cafe is part of my running route sometimes, so it's not far from my school. If you tell me your working schedule, I can come see visit you here from time to time." Mei smiled before throwing an arm over the other pitcher's shoulders.

"That would be great! You're always welcomed here!" the enthusiastic younger pitcher said.

"You should start to head back before it gets too late." Mei suggested.

"Say Mei, you want to grab a quick drink? My treat, as a thank you." Sawamura quickly spoke up before Mei started heading off.

"Sure." replied the older pitcher as the two made way to the nearest vending machine.

After the two got their drinks from a vending machine, they found a empty field that was dark enough for them to see the stars. The two laid on their backs as they looked upwards at the stars.

"Wow...it's a great view from here." Sawamura whispered.

The two stared off into space in silence for a while. Sawamura then started to stretch his arms out, causing his hands to go over Mei's hands.

Sawamura stopped for a second, his mind trying to process what he was touching, as it was too dark to see. The object felt warm and comforting, but it didn't click in his mind that it was Mei's hand. He was tired. _'Hmmm...that's weird...what's the warm soft object...' _

Mei was startled when he felt Sawamura's hands over his. He turned to look at the other pitcher. "Ummm Sawamura."

Sawamura hear his name being called, looked at the direction of the voice and realised it was Mei. The next thing to click in his mind was that his hand was over Mei's.

"SORRY!" he shouted as he sprung up onto his feet. His face was flushed red, but as luck would have it, it was too dark for Mei to see, but unbeknownst to Sawamura, Mei was also blushing. Both pitchers' hearts were beating erratically, a feeling surged through them that they've never felt before.

"Ummm, we should head back." Mei stuttered. _'I should have kept my mouth shut...'_

"Yeah..." a mumble came out of Sawamura. _'What's this feeling...'_

The two made their way towards Sawamura's bike.

Mei was confused at what Sawamura did, as his mind was at a struggle to decipher the meaning. _'Mei...do it, he made a move just now, he clearly has some feelings for you...'_ he thought.

Sawamura on the other hand was chastising himself for not realising his actions. _'Baka! What was I thinking...of course it was a hand, what else would be that warm in the middle of an open field...great...now he probably hates me...' _He took a glance from his peripheral vision towards Mei, _'I hope not...'_

As they reached the bike, the two stood there in awkward silence. Neither willing to speak up.

"Well Sawamura, have a safe ride home." Mei spoke up.

"Do you want the bicycle?" Sawamura asked.

"Nah, I'm fine, I'm gonna jog back." Mei replied.

"Ok then, see ya..." Sawamura, still stunned at his stupidity, said before he started to walk in the opposite direction.

But before he made three steps, he heard his name being called. "Eijun..." He turned around to look at Mei, but felt two soft warm lips pressed against his. Time seemed to freeze for a split second, before Sawamura realised, the other pitcher separated from the brief kiss and jogged off while waiving his hand in good bye.

"Night Eijun!" Mei shouted with a smirk plastered on his face.

Sawamura stood there, shocked. His fingers went to touch his lips before a goofy smirk appeared on his face. He then jumped on his bike and headed back to the dorms with enthusiasm, all the while slight giggles trailed his wake.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** That was fun to write :)

Next chapter would be out in a few days (hopefully)


	4. Ch4 - Suggesting and Implementing

**A/N:** Again, thanks a lot for the reviews and adding this into FF's alerts! The reviews are always fun to read!~

Excuse my use of incorrect honourifics (I may have gotten it wrong), and my bad if I have their personalities are wrong (hopefully not too OOC).

Enjoy!

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><p><strong>Chapter 3 Recap:<strong> Sawamura and the first stringers clear up the misunderstanding/prank. Later the day, Mei accidently bumps into Sawamura working in the cafe. After Sawamura's shift, they go for a drink and to gaze the stars, as friends. As they depart their separate paths for the night, the earlier mixed signals, during their short time together, sparks into a quick kiss from Mei to Sawamura, leaving the younger pitcher stunned in joy under the blanket of night.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 4 - Suggesting and Implementing<strong>

Sawamura rode his bike back to the dorms. His mind was off floating amongst the stars that night. His heart was racing, yet happiness coursed through his veins with each erratic thump.

Once he got back into his dorm room, of course to find his senpais sleeping, he jumped into his bed, pulled the sheets over his entire body and started to laugh silently in joy. _'He really kissed me...Mei kissed me!'_ was the only thought flooding his mind. It was his first kiss and he couldn't be happier, couldn't ask for anything more. Eventually, he drifted to sleep with a smile on his face.

* * *

><p><strong>- One month later -<strong>

"Mei!" Sawamura waved as he ran towards the other pitcher.

"Eijun, about time you got here." a slightly annoyed Mei pouted, with arms crossed across his chest.

"Sorry, I was stuck cleaning up, but anyways, let's go grab something to eat!" the younger pitcher apologised while giving puppy dog eyes.

Mei tried to divert his gaze from those eyes, but failure was inevitable, eventually, he folded. "Fine...let's go...you know, you gotta stop doing that, it's not really fair..." But inwardly, Mei loved seeing those eyes, although he wouldn't admit in front of Sawamura.

Sawamura leaned over next to Mei's ears to whisper. "I love you."

Mei started to blush. As Sawamura started to run away, he quickly wrapped an arm around Sawamura's neck and head locked the younger pitcher.

"Oh no you don't, you can't run after saying that too me..."

"Ouch...but I do..." Sawamura tried to reason.

"I know...and I love you too." Mei let the pitcher go and as Sawamura recollected himself, he found a pair of lips grazing his.

As Sawamura leaned in for a deeper kiss, Mei pulled back. Sawamura looked up at Mei with a face full of emptiness and expectation.

"Two can play at the teasing game." Mei gave a smirk before he started to make his way to the venue they had planned for the evening, dinner and movie. Sawamura, in a state of displeasure, chased after the elder pitcher.

"Say, are the other guys still bugging you about us going out? Last time Miyuki saw me, he threatened me to take good care of you, else he'd kill me...I've never seen him so serious." Mei exhaled at he recollected being caught and cornered by Seidou's first strings some weeks ago.

"Haha, that was funny, I've never seen you make that face before." Sawamura started laughing, but was cut off by Mei pinching his cheeks. Sawamura, while in pain from Mei pinching his cheeks, quickly stated "Same goes with your team mates, they threatened you to take care of me too."

Mei took a huff. "And they're still pestering me about it, it's not like I'll hurt you." He looked away with a blush and quietly whispered, so that Sawamura couldn't hear, "at least not outside of certain...ahem...things..." Mei went off on his own musings with a grin on his face.

"What was that?" the clueless pitcher asked, confusion plastered all over his face.

Mei turned around and gave the younger pitcher an innocent look, "What was what?"

"Anyways...everyone sees me as the cute little brother, while you're the big mean monster." Sawamura put a finger on his lips and stared off into the distance as if in deep contemplation.

"Hey! I'm no mean monster." Mei put Sawamura's head between his fists and started to push inwards lightly.

"Ow owww...I'm sorry...I was joking" Sawamura pleaded.

"Anyways, we should quickly head to the movie before we miss it."

* * *

><p><strong>- After the movie -<strong>

"Wow that movie was great!" Sawamura shouted as the two walked out the theatre.

"Yeah!" Mei agreed. "We should do this more often."

"You mean go out with you more?" Sawamura said tauntingly. "Haha, you should just say it straight out."

"Why you!" Mei tried to grab the younger pitcher, but Sawamura quickly made off before Mei could grab him.

As Sawamura jogged away from Mei, he waved his hand and shouted, "I have to go to work now."

"It's time already?" Mei was surprised at how fast time went by, he too was jogging in chase after the other pitcher.

"Yeah, anyways, I'll see you later!" Sawamura waved at Mei as he ran off to the cafe.

Mei on the other hand, didn't want the day to end, so he surreptitiously followed Sawamura to the cafe.

* * *

><p><strong>- At the cafe -<strong>

"Manager! I changed and I'm ready to serve!" Sawamura enthusiastically came out from the back, saluting the manager.

"Great!~ You're such a great enthusiastic teen! Come over here, you have a special guest tonight."

"Who?" curiosity was sparking within the depths of his eyes as he ran over to the table the manager was standing at.

"Mei-chan!" the manager said as Mei came into Sawamura's view.

"You know, stalking isn't good." Sawamura said snidely towards Mei.

"Am I stalking you? It just so happens I wanted to get a drink and I was nearby." Mei gave a big smile.

"Haha, you two have such a good friendship." the manager stated, causing both pitchers to blush slightly at the comment.

Sawamura took Mei's order and shortly after, came out of the kitchen with Mei's meal.

"Here you go!" Sawamura placed the plate of hamburger steak in front of Mei. "Enjoy!" Sawamura turned around to leave.

"Ummm Eijun...I need a knife and fork..."

"Oh right, give me one sec." Sawamura ran off back into the kitchen to grab the utensils.

While Sawamura was gone, the manager walked around and stopped at Mei's table.

"Hey Mei-chan, what's wrong?"

"Oh nothing, Sawamura's getting me utensils. Say, I heard that you sometimes have theme nights here, Sawamura was in a little brother role one time right?"

"Yup, that was soooo fun!~ We should have something like that again!" the manager enthusiastically said.

"Yeah I agree, you should, I have some good ideas too!" Mei responded with much enthusiasm.

"Oh great!"

"What's great, manager?" Sawamura asked as he came back, fork in left hand, knife in right.

"Oh Mei-chan was about to suggest some themes to me, you know, for theme night. What would you like to see Mei-chan?"

"You know, it would be reaaaally interesting to see the servers play the role of prince and princess, I know it sounds weird to have a prince and princess serve you, but how often does that happen? PLUS, I think Sawamura-chan here would look great in costume!" Mei's eyes glistened in hope that the manager would agree.

"Wonderful!~ I like that idea!" the manager pretty much twirled around his current location in approval of the idea.

Sawamura's eyes sparkled at the thought of dressing up as a prince. _'Sounds fun...I've never played a prince role before!'_

"WAIT, there's more!" Mei interjected. Both the manager and Sawamura stood there frozen, looking intently at Mei.

"The waitresses should dress as princes, and waiters should dress as princesses!" Mei's tone was ecstatic, his voice was on a crescendo as he continued. "Can you imagine Sawamura-hime-chan here in a dress?! CAN YOU SEE IT?!" Mei was about to jump off his seat as he could see the manager buying into his pitch.

"YES! YES I CAN! Brilliant idea Mei-chan! I'll do that!"

Sawamura's eyes shot darts out at Mei, both hands were squeezing the utensils with all his might. His glare pretty much emanated death. A soft whisper came out of Sawamura's mouth, which Mei heard clearly, "You're dead NA-RU-MI-YA-KUN"

Mei started laughing and ignored Sawamura's comment. The manager was also laughing along with Mei.

"What do you think Sawamura-chan, it's a great idea isn't it? I think you would look splendid!"

Sawamura turned around to look at the manager. "Ha! I think it's great too!~ Buuuut maybe it'll be too extravagant, it might scare some of the customers away with the cross dressing...you know..." Sawamura quickly threw in the puppy dog eyes in attempt to woo the manager onto his reasonings.

"No it won't! I think people would like to see it, especially customers." Mei butted in with his comment.

Sawamura turned back to Mei, gave him a glare and stabbed the fork and knife into the hamburger steak. "Your meal's getting cold NARUMIYA-KUN...you should quickly eat it...", accentuating Mei's name through gritted teeth.

Mei took queue to stop pushing forward, as he knew the manager was set on doing it already.

"Yeah Mei-chan's right...people would love it, great, we'll do it..." the manager thought for a second. "TOMORROW! I have the costumes already!"

Sawamura's jaw pretty much dropped, but he quickly recomposed himself to acknowledge the manager's decision.

"Haha, this picture's great! I've never seen your jaw drop that much, I'm going to make this my wall paper." Mei held out his phone showing the most recent picture he took of Sawamura.

"Let me see that Mei..." Sawamura said while holding his hand out.

"HA! You mean let you delete the picture? No chance!" Mei immediately locked the phone and placed it in his pocket. Mei leaned close to Sawamura's ears, "unless...you want to reach into my pocket for it..."

A blush grew on Sawamura's face as he contemplated it, but quickly scratched the out of his head as the manager was standing right behind him.

* * *

><p><strong>- The following day -<strong>

*RINNNG RINNNNG*

"Miyuki, is that your phone?" Chris asked Miyuki. Most of the first strings were hanging out in Miyuki's dorm room.

Miyuki ran over to pick up his ringing cell. "Hello?"

"Miyuki?"

"Yes, is that you Mei?"

"Yup, if you guys are sorry about what you did to Sawamura that night at the cafe, you should go to the cafe tonight!" Mei said while trying to stifle chuckles erupting out of his mouth.

"Uhhhh..." Miyuki was at a loss for words.

"Don't uhhh me..." Mei retorted.

"Ok ok, we will, we'll show up tonight." Miyuki replied before hanging up. _'Hmmm, I've never heard Mei so serious before...'_

"Is there a problem?" Tetsuya asked.

"Yeah, who was that?" Kuramochi pressed on.

"Oh that was Mei, he said if we were sorry for what we did to Sawamura at the cafe last time, we should go there again tonight." Miyuki said, with some confusion.

"Hey, that's not a bad idea, visiting the cafe might be fun." Ryosuke stated.

"Then it's set, we'll go tonight!" Jun added, but quickly looked at Tetsuya to get confirmation, who nodded, giving the okay.

* * *

><p><strong>- Later in the evening at the cafe -<strong>

"What?! It's prince and princess night? What is this? Another stupid setup again?" Jun exclaimed as he saw the sign outside the cafe broadcasting the special event.

"This could be fun...maybe our pitcher-kun is now a prince." Ryosuke smirked.

"Let's head in." Chris said as the seven first strings entered.

"Goooooood evening boys! Good to see you again! What luck you guys have, tonight is prince and princess night!~ Hope you guys enjoy!~~" The manager stated. "I'll get Sawamura-chan to serve you guys!"

"Sawamura-chaan~ please go to table 5." the manager called out from across the room.

"Yes manager!" the fervent, albeit annoyed, waiter replied. As he made way to the table, his head was looking down on the floor, _'Careful Eijun...don't trip on the dress...careful...'_

As he saw the table in front of him, he looked up to the guests. "Greet...ings..." Sawamura started but immediately choked on his voice.

Everyone looked up and was left speechless. _'Is...is that...Sawa...mura...?'_

Miyuki stood up, grabbed Sawamura's chin and started moving his head left, right, up and down.

"HAHAHA! It is you. Hey guys, it's Sawamura!" Miyuki looked Sawamura directly in the eyes with a glare that pierced the pitcher's soul while holding the pitcher's chin. "Or should we call you Sawamura-hime-chan?"

Everyone on the table broke into laughter. Sawamura got flustered immediately.

"Is that makeup on your face? Lipstick, eyeliner, you got that whole thing going." Kuramochi noticed and asked.

"Hahaha, it is! This is great, it was worth the trip just to see this!" Jun spoke up.

"It's not funny guys!" Sawamura tried to reprimand the group but was left looking weak as his voice crackled from the embarrassment.

The group of first strings kept laughing and from the other end of the room, Sawamura could hear another person join in on the laugh. He looked in the direction and noticed a blonde hair male in sunglasses and baseball cap laughing vehemently. _'Is that...MEI?! Whyyyy youuuuu..." _Sawamura's hands were clenched into fists. _'I'll get youuuuu...'_

"Oi Hime-chan...we're ready to order..."

_'Stop calling me HIME-CHAN...' _Sawamura looked back at the guys and pulled out a pen and paper, "I hope you guys can pay for yourselves tonight." he scoffed, obviously annoyed at the enjoyment they're getting out of him.

"Of course! We wouldn't want the princess to cover for us again."

_'Kill me...just end my miseryyy...pleeeaseeeee...'_ Sawamura begged for something to happen so he could run away, but to his dismay, none happened.

After taking their orders, Sawamura turned around to head into the kitchen.

"Hey hime-chan." Miyuki called out again.

Sawamura, out of reflex turned around immediately and started walking back to the table, but to everyone's shock, the pitcher tripped on his dress and fell onto Miyuki.

"Ahhhhh" Sawamura shouted, all attention in the cafe was now on the falling pitcher.

Miyuki held his hands up and caught the pitcher right in the chest. Miyuki felt something soft, squeezed it a bit and a big smirk grew on his face.

"Sawamura...hime-chan...you're wearing a bra with cushion underneath, aren't you?" he gave a couple more squeezes.

"Eeeeeek" Sawamura shouted and immediately turned tomato red. He quickly pushed himself off Miyuki and put both arms in front of his chest.

For a moment, it was completely silent, until Mei broke out into a fit of laughter. Following suite, the entire cafe started laughing as well.

"HAHAHA, Miyuki, how did that feel?!" Kuramochi asked.

"If I didn't know it was Sawamura, I woulda thought it was the real thing." Miyuki teased.

Sawamura turned into a shade of red that shouldn't have existed. He walked up in front of Miyuki. Everyone on the table had their eyes poised on the cross dressing pitcher.

"Pervert!" Sawamura slapped, very lightly as he couldn't harm the cafe's guestss, across Miyuki's face, turned around and walked away into the kitchen.

The whole table broke out laughing again, but this time, at Miyuki. Of course, our friend in the corner, Mei, continued his tirade of laughter, but inwardly cheering for Sawmaura. _'Way to go Eijun!~'_

At the end of the night, Sawamura fell onto the couch in the back change room, still clad in his dress.

_'Oh man...that was a long night...' _ he thought as he let a sigh of relief out.

"Eijun!" Mei barged in through the door to greet the tired pitcher. "You were great tonight!"

Sawamura shot Mei a glare for creating this whole dilemma. "I know it was you who called the others here..."

Mei walked up to the couch and sat right next to Sawamura, placing his arm around the other piitcher's shoulders. "Haha, but it was great!"

"It's not funny!" Sawamura pouted. He was too tired to fight with Mei at the moment.

"You were really cute tonight Eijun..." Mei whispered into Sawamura's ears, causing the younger pitcher to become flushed. "I can get use to this role playing thing..."

Mei then leaned in to give Sawamura a quick peck.

"You should hurry up and change, the others are waiting outside for you." Mei got off the couch and walked to the door. Sawamura was watching Mei's movement intently.

"Oh I forgot!" Mei turned around and walked back to Sawamura.

"What's wrong? What did you forget?" Sawamura questioned.

Mei bent over so that he was looking Sawamura right in the eyes. The other pitcher stared back without blinking, in anticipation for what Mei could possibly be doing. Both Mei's hand then went and groped Sawamura's still clad fake chests.

"Miyuki was right, it does kinda feel real. Why you went that far to wear them, beats the hell out of me. Hahaha" Mei started laughing as he quickly made his way out the change room doors, leaving a shocked and blushing Sawamura behind.

"PERVERT!"

After seeing Mei walk out and shutting the door, Sawamura walked towards the mirror in front of him and stared into it. He was staring at the image of himself, specifically the chest area.

_'Hmmmm...'_ he thought as he slowly raised both his hands to his chest and started doing what Miyuki and Mei had done. _'So I guess that's what it feels like...'_

Suddenly, a bright flash came out of the corner of Sawamura's eyes. Quickly looking towards the door, he saw Mei taking a picture, an incriminating picture be it, of him and his actions.

"M-M-M-ME-MEI!" the younger pitcher shouted.

"Touching yourself, Eiiiii-junnnn? Who's the PERVERT now? hahaha" Mei teased the still cross dressed teen while laughing his head off.

"N-N-N-NO!" Sawamura quickly replied. "It's not what it seems to be!" a fervent red blush bloomed on Sawamura's face.

"Haha, your face is blending in with your lipstick! So...then why were you touching yourself?" Mei started to chuckle with a mischievous face.

"I...I...I was...just..." Sawamura stuttered but couldn't find the words or reason for his actions.

"It's ok, I know you're cute, you probably just couldn't resist yourself either." Mei continued to laugh at the other pitcher as a new shade of red appeared.

"N...no! It's nothing like that!" Sawamura tried to reason.

"Haha, I bet the others outside would love to see this picture!" Mei gave a Sawamura a victory sign as he started walking out the door, all the while laughing.

"Meeeeeei!" Sawamura screamed as he started chasing after the exiting pitcher, hands reaching out as far as he could, but as luck would have it, Sawamura stepped on his skirt and fell face flat on the floor.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** And there we have it, Chapter 4.

Chapter 5 will be out in hopefully 1-2 weeks (haven't started writing it). Things will happen! lol xD


	5. Ch5 - Playing and Hurting

**A/N**: Thanks for the review and reading! We'll see what happens in this chapter :O

**Chapter 4 Recap**: Mei suggests to do a cross-dressing prince/princess theme night in the cafe. The manager agrees and does it the following day. However, the devious Mei somewhat forced the other first stringers to go to the cafe the night of the theme. They do, and all hell breaks loose for our young pitcher.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 5 - Playing and Hurting<strong>

"Hey hime-chan! Today's a big day for you." Jun semi-shouted at Sawamura.

Sawamura jumped as he heard Jun shout, especially with the hime-chan comment.

"Beard-senpai, I'm not a princess!" Sawamura hot headedly reprimanded his senior, of course, in a whisper to avoid attention from other members of the Seidou team.

"How you feeling today?" Miyuki walked up and rubbed his hands on the southpaw's hair.

"Stop that!" Sawamura swatted the catcher's hand away. "I'm fine." He gave a annoyed face towards the other first stringers.

"You're not nervous? We ARE going to have a practice match with your boyfriend's school." Miyuki asked nonchalantly.

"Shhhhhh" Sawamura quickly pressed Miyuki's mouth shut. "Don't let everyone here know! BAKA!" again with the soft yet scolding whispers.

"Bakamura, you better pitch at your best and win today!"

"Yeah, better not let your relationship get in the way of us winning."

Everyone who knew started laughing at the younger pitcher.

Sawamura made a disgruntled face with a retort, "You guys better hit his fast balls!"

"Right right...just do your part." Miyuki said as he slapped the pitcher's back. "The coach did let you start today."

Sawamura's eyes started to sparkle. "I won't let the general down! YOSH!" he shouted at the top of his lung, causing all the Seidou players to look at him.

Suddenly, a bus pulled up and Inashiro Tech baseball members started to walk into the baseball diamond. The coaches gave their greetings and Inashiro took their dugout.

"Ok everyone, get ready to win!" The coach shouted.

"YOSH! YOU CAN COUNT ON ME GENERAL!" Sawamura shouted again.

Everyone on the field could hear the enthusiastic pitcher. The Inashiro players, especially Mei, started to laugh.

"Shut up baka! Look, they're laughing at us now." Jun slapped the southpaw in the head.

"We're up at bat first, let's go." the coach stated.

As always, Mei's pitches were fast, the first inning ended as fast as the game started.

Smirking at getting three strikeouts immediately, the Inashiro pitcher walked back to the dugout.

"YOSH, it's my turn!" Sawamura quickly ran up to the pitcher's mound.

"Hey Mei, your boyfriend's starting today."

"You're right, don't go easy on him!" Mei smiled as he responded.

But alas, the first three batters came back as fast as they went up, surprisingly.

"ARGHH, that ball always gets me..."

"Yeah...it's kinda annoying to hit..."

"You guys just suck, watch Harada and me hit it in the next inning." a snide smirk came up on the Inashiro southpaw's face.

"Just go up to pitch." Harada told Mei.

Again, the inning played as it did previously. Three consecutive strikeouts were made and the sides switched.

"Don't mind!" Sawamura shouted at the frustrated Seidou batters. He got ready and ran up to the mound almost immediately after Mei got off.

Harada was first to go up in the second inning. Sawamura stared down the clean up, wound up, and threw. The Inashiro captain stared at the ball as it flew right past him.

Miyuki took a glimpse at Harada. "You shoulda tried hitting..."

"Hmph, worry about yourself." the batter replied.

Sawamura wound up again and threw.

"Strike two!"

"That's two." Miyuki said. The batter just ignored the catcher. Miyuki threw the ball back to Sawamura. _'Give me one in the corner.'_

As Sawamura threw, his position slipped a bit.

_'Oh no, it's going towards the centre..'_ Miyuki prayed that Harada would miss the ball.

Harada smirked and swung the bat, but to his surprise, he missed making complete contact.

*PING* the ball went popping upwards in the infield. Miyuki gave a sigh of relief, but realised it was coming down towards the pitcher. _'Oh no, pleaseeee catch it...'_ he thought as everyone in the infield started running towards Sawamura out of reflex.

"YOSH!" Sawamura yelled as the ball landed in his glove. "YOSH YOSH YOSH!"

Jun ran up and gave Sawamura a kick on his back side. "Be quiet and focus!"

"Good job Sawamura." Miyuki called out, obviously relieved that Sawamura's practice had paid off.

As Harada walked back to the dugout, Mei stepped up into the batter's box.

"Mei...good to see you here. You going to hit your boyfriend's pitch?" Miyuki tried to make small talk.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't have it any other way." Mei retorted.

Again, Sawamura got into position and threw the pitch. Mei took a swing.

"Strike one!"

"Not so easy is it?" Miyuki teased.

"Be quiet..." Mei muttered, his face showing displeasure.

Another ball came flying towards Mei, again the pitcher swung.

"Strike two!"

"One last one." Miyuki taunted.

"Make sure you don't cry when I hit the ball." Mei retorted. _'Damn these pitches...'_ but he smirked as he was proud his boyfriend would give batters such a hard time.

"Stop thinking dirty thoughts!" was shouted out of the Inashiro dugout as they caught a glimpse of Mei's smirk.

Mei started getting flustered. "I'm not, idiot!" he shouted back in anger.

Mei got into position and eyed Sawamura. With a winding motion, Sawamura whipped and released the ball. With one last swing, the ball barely grazed the top of the bat and made contact with Miyuki's glove.

"Strikeout!"

Mei stared at the pitcher in shock, before walking back to the dugout with a smirk on his face. To his surprise, he wasn't angry, but happy.

"Hey! What are you smiling about?"

"Can't deny Eijun-chan's pitches are good." Mei muttered silently.

"Just because he's your boyfriend, don't go siding with the enemy."

"I'm not!"

The baseball game continued onwards, with both sides in a stalemate.

In the seventh inning, Mei went up to pitch. With a swing of his arm, the ball flew as fast as it did in the first inning, if not faster.

Sawamura watched with glistening eyes at the speed of Mei's pitches. _'Wow...I wish I could pitch like that...'_

Miyuki looked at Sawamura. "Oi, what happened to cheering our team? It seems you're admiring your boyfriend more."

Sawamura immediately turned red.

"Bingo." Miyuki confirmed, turning his gaze back at the game.

As Mei started another pitch a sudden scream was heard. The southpaw pitcher immediately dropped onto the ground with his right hand clasped over his left shoulder.

Everyone ran up to the in pain pitcher.

"Mei, what's wrong?"

"Coach, Mei's hurt!"

All of the Inashiro players were crowding around Mei. The coach ran up to Mei to check the southpaw out.

"We have to take him to the hospital." the coach stated.

Slowly, all the Inashiro players got up and started to escort Mei off the diamond. The two coaches said their goodbyes and the players started getting into the bus.

Sawamura ran up to the bus in attempt to speak to Mei.

"Sawamura, we're going to head to the hospital. You should stay here with your team. I'll give you a call on how things go." Harada stopped the anxious pitcher.

Sawamura hesitantly nodded. "Please take care of him." the Seidou pitcher meekly said.

Harada placed a reaffirming hand on Sawamura's shoulders and gave a slight smile, "We will, don't worry."

* * *

><p><strong>Later that night<strong>

Sawamura sat eagerly with his phone clasped within his hands. He was desperately awaiting for Harada's call and news of Mei's condition, but none came. Everyone else saw how worried he was and attempt to comfort him, but to no avail.

"Sawamura-chan, you should eat something, are you hungry?"

Sawamura just shook his head. Everyone tried to convince the southpaw, to bring him out of his daze, but the attempts were all fruitless.

Eventually, Sawamura fell asleep, slumping over the chair with his phone clutched in his hands.

"Hey Miyuki, you wanna carry him back to the dorm room?" Ryosuke asked with a smirk.

"Why me?" Miyuki asked in shock.

"Cause you and him form a battery..."

_'They keep using that excuse...'_ Miyuki thought as he reluctantly carried the pitcher bridal style onto the bed.

The night went by quickly as the sun peeked from the horizons. Sawamura was in a deep slumber, sleeping well into the late morning. Luckily for him, there wasn't any practice, as they had the practice match yesterday. By noon, the pitcher woke up.

"WHAT?! It's already noon." he shouted into the empty dorm room. He quickly pulled out his cell phone and saw that he had no calls. His heart sank. _'I should call Harada..'_

"Hey Sawamura, wake up, time for..." Jun barged into the dorm room only to realise the pitcher had awoken. "...time for lunch." he said before turning around and leaving.

Sawamura made his way to the cafeteria and got his tray of food. He sat down and started to munch away, looking at his phone.

"Don't worry too much. I'm sure Mei's fine. They're probably just too busy to call you." Miyuki spoke.

But as if Miyuki's comment was a blessing, Sawamura's phone rang.

Sawamura looked at the caller ID and quickly answered the phone, "Hello, Harada-senpai, how's Mei? Is he ok? What happened, what did the doctor say?"

"Hold on there, Sawamura." Harada stopped the pitcher's rampage of questions. "The doctor said Mei should be ok after a couple months, but he's gonna have to rehab for another couple months after that."

"So it's not permanent, he'll recover?" Sawamura had a sigh of relief. The other members of Seidou's baseball team that overheard also gave a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, but he won't be able to pitch in the coming tournament." Harada noted solemnly.

"Would he make it for Koshien?" Sawamura hesitantly asked, scared of the answer.

"Yeah he will, but he'll have to work hard, although I don't think that would be an issue." Harada let out a small chuckle. This relieved Sawamura of most of his worries, although not all.

"That's good to hear. Can I do anything to help?" Sawamura eagerly asked.

"Actually, yeah...ever since Mei came back from the hospital yesterday, he hasn't eaten at all, hasn't touched dinner, breakfast or lunch. He didn't even drink anything." Harada said with a worried tone. "Can you come..." before Harada could finish his sentence, Sawamura spoke up.

"I'll come right away! I'll be there in 15 minutes." Sawamura said, quickly hung up and ran out the dorm room door.

"Hey Sawamura, be careful!" Miyuki tried to yell after pitcher, but gave up knowing that the pitcher only had one thing in mind.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Mei's hurt?! Next chapter would be out in a couple days/weekend time frame :)


	6. Ch6 - Encouraging and Chastising

**A/N**: Again, many thanks for the reviews!~  
>Excuse the language used.<br>Hope everyone enjoys this chapter :)

**Chapter 5 Recap**: Seidou and Inashiro has a practice game, during the match, Mei gets injured. The following day, Sawamura gets a call from Harada asking him to help out, in which the young pitcher rushes out to Inashiro.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 6 - Encouraging and Chastising<strong>

"Mei, please get up and eat something. You can't just sleep there forever. Everything's going to be fine." Harada tried to convince the injuried pitcher. The other baseball club members nodded their head in confirmation, but Mei just turned to his side to face the opposite direction of the looming members.

"Mei...how are you going to get better if you don't eat anything?"

_'Leave me alone guys...' _Mei thought as his friends pestered him about laying in bed. _'I don't want to eat...and I don't want to hear your voices either! You're all so annoying...just leave me alone...don't you all know my baseball life could have ended there and then?'_

"Yeah, don't let the injury bring you down! It's a common injury."

But the pitcher didn't listen to them. He was depressed, lost all motivation, unwilling to do anything.

"Mei!" a sudden voice came shouting through the Inashiro dorm room doors as Sawamura rushed into the room. He bent over, hands on his knees panting. "Mei..." he looked up realising all eyes, except one pair, were gazing upon him.

"Hey all..." he meekly said, scared that he interrupted at a sensitive moment.

"Sawamura, you're here! Good, please help us convince Mei to at least eat something...he's been like this for well over a day." Shirakawa spoke up.

_'Oh great...just what I needed, another person here...now Eijun's going to see me in my pitiful state...so annoying...'_ Mei groaned.

Sawamura took at the older southpaw. He moved up next to the bed, knelt down so that his head was at the same level as the top of the bed.

"Mei..." he spoke, but stopped as he realised everyone was intently looking at him. He gave the others a glare and they got the hint to exit the room.

As they exited, the last person closed the door, but once the door was closed, everyone pressed their ears against the door in anticipation that Sawamura could get Mei out of the slump.

Sawamura walked over to lock the door, so as to not have anyone disturb him and Mei. He then walked back to the bed side and knelt down.

"Mei...please eat something." Sawamura said in a pleading voice. "You need the energy to recover."

There was a long moment of silence as Sawamura paused to let the other pitcher reply, but none was given.

"Please Mei..." it hurt Sawamura to know that Mei had injured himself and to see his boyfriend in this state.

Again, no response.

"Mei, you'll get better again, you'll be able to pitch again by next tournament! Don't give up...Chris-senpai also injured himself, but he's recovering very well. You can overcome this...everyone's here for you..." Sawamura pleaded.

Mei had been in his room the whole day listening to the nagging of the coach, his teammates and now Sawamura. _'No one understands...'_ he was getting pissed and sadly Sawamura was the casualty of the pent up anger from the dilemma and everyone's nagging.

Sawamura reached his hand out and placed it on Mei's shoulder gently.

"Mei..." he whispered in a caring tone.

Suddenly, Mei's right hand flew across slapping Sawamura's hand away.

"SHUT UP SAWAMURA!" Mei sprang up from his bed, looking at the younger pitcher.

Sawamura, shocked and surprised at the sudden action, fell onto his back. He propped himself up with his elbows, looked at the other pitcher, with eyes showing hurt.

"How the hell would you know what I'm going through? Why can't you all leave me alone? Don't worry? HA don't make me laugh, I may not recover fully at all. Baseball's all I have! IT'S ALL I HAVE!" Mei screamed at the fallen pitcher. He couldn't take any more of this comfort talk, as if everyone knew what he was going through.

"Mei, we're here for you, you'll get through this, everyone's here to help you, the coach, your teammates, me..." Sawamura tried to comfort the pitcher.

"How can you help me? How would you know how I feel? You know how hard I worked to become the ace? You know how important this is to me?" Mei started to reprimand the younger pitcher out of frustration.

Sawamura could feel the pressure in the atmosphere. It was getting harder to breathe, as if he were stuck in a tiny room with walls slowly closing in, slowly compressing his chest. All he could do was listen to Mei, he couldn't find the words to express himself.

"Ha...haha...that's right...how would you know, you're not even the ace." Mei's right hand clasped over his face as he started to chuckle. "That's right, you're just a bench warmer! Even when you get a chance to pitch, can you even get injured with those slow balls of yours? Don't put yourself on my level and don't try to sympathise with me. Leave me alone." the spiteful words flew out of Mei's mouth. The hotheaded pitcher didn't think, didn't care, he wanted to vent and he just wanted some alone time.

Harada, hearing what Mei was saying from outside, reached for the door knob in attempt to open it. "Shit...it's locked..."

The shocked younger pitcher looked up towards Mei. "Mei...I..." he was trying to collect his thoughts.

"I don't want to talk to you Sawamura." Mei didn't give Sawamura a chance to finish his thoughts.

"Mei..." Sawamura tried to speak again, but choked on his own breath.

"I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE, GET OUT. I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU. WHAT PART OF GET THE FUCK OUT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND." Mei shouted ever so loudly. He grabbed a pillow with his right hand and whipped it at Sawamura's head, causing Sawamura to fall backwards again.

The younger southpaw quickly got up and scurried to the door. As he was about to open it, he paused and whispered "I'm sorry, you're right..." tears started to form in his eyes, slowly creeping out, but he held them back, he didn't want to cry in front of Mei.

The younger pitcher scurried to open the room door, but fumbled as it was locked. He was in a rush to get out of Mei's gaze, but the knob wouldn't open. _'Come on Eijun...hurry up...come...'_

"GET OUT NOW! ARE YOU THAT STUPID THAT YOU CAN'T OPEN THE DAMN DOOR?" Mei shouted angrily.

Sawamura jumped out of surprise and shock, he eventually unlocked the knob and proceeded to open the door. There, he was met with gazing eyes of eavesdropping Inashiro players. Sawamura's heart sank as he realised everyone heard everything. He diverted his gaze so that no one could see the tears forming in his eyes. He was about to break out crying, but put in full effort to hold it in. _'Not in front of everyone Eijun...'_

"Sawamura..." Harada softly spoke, his hand moving towards Sawamura's shoulders to give support to the younger pitcher.

"Sorry guys, I have to go...I..." he thought of an excuse, "...I forgot I have practice..." Sawamura slowly pushed and squeezed his way out of the crowded doorway.

As Sawamura started to head towards the school's main entrance, Harada grabbed the younger pitcher's shoulders, "Sawamura, he didn't mean any of that, it's just that he's injured and we were all pestering him...are you..."

Sawamura quickly wiped his eyes and turned around with a big smile on his face. "Nah, I didn't take anything to heart. Mei's in pain, I know he didn't mean any of that. We should let him rest, he'll eat when he feels like it." Sawamura tried to convince the Inashiro catcher that he was ok. He clasped his hand atop Harada's hands and gave a firm, yet gentle, squeeze. "Please take care of Mei, he needs you all."

Sawamura then quickly turned around and walked away as fast as he could. Every ticking second, it was harder and harder to hold back his tears. The words that came out of Mei's mouth played over and over again in his mind, it was like a nail being hammered into his heart, deeper and deeper.

_'It's not Mei's fault...why am I so insensitive...'_ he was blaming himself for everything, for being insensitive to the injured pitcher, for not realising what Mei was going through. He continued to hold back his tears as there were too many people on the streets.

* * *

><p><strong>-Back in Mei's room-<strong>

Harada went back to Mei's dorm room, motioned everyone away and proceeded into the room alone.

"Mei, what were you thinking?!" Harada said angrily as if he were about to pick a fight with Mei.

"Do you know what you said to Sawamura?" Harada walked next to Mei so that he could face the pitcher.

"You better..." the catcher stopped upon seeing the pitcher. He knew there and then that the pitcher regretted ever word.

Mei sat atop his bed, tears streaming down his face as he bit his lip in attempt to stop sobs from escaping. His fists were clenching the blankets in front of him, with knuckles turning red. The pitcher's eyes were red, his body started to shake and cracks of cries could be heard whimpering out of the corner of his mouth. He was like a little vulnerable child, crying from being lost.

"Mei..." Harada whispered. His heart ached as he saw the pitcher fall into pain, emotional pain.

"Harada...I-I...I said some..." Mei tried to formulate the words, but he broke into cries.

"I know, you didn't mean any of it, Sawamura knows you didn't mean those words..." Harada embraced the frail second year pitcher. He started to pat Mei's back in attempt to calm the pitcher down.

"No he doesn't...I didn't know what I was saying...but those words hurt...I didn't mean it...do...do...you think..." Mei didn't want to ask, but he needed to know, "...Eijun...hates...me..." he choked out the half question half statement.

"I didn't mean...any of it..." Mei wrapped his right arm around Harada's neck to get a more secure embrace, scared that he would lose another person. "I didn't mean it...please don't hate me..." the broken pitcher went on apologising, in hopes the apologies would find their way to Sawamura. Suddenly he broke out into loud cries. Mei dug his face into the catcher's chest, where his cries were muffled by Harada's body and the tears soaked their way into Harada's shirt.

"Mei, calm down...Sawamura knows you didn't mean any of it." Harada got some space between the pitcher and himself. He looked Mei in the eyes and gave him a comforting nod.

"We'll clear all this up ok? We'll go find Sawamura and clear it up." Harada said reassuring the pitcher that everything was ok.

But as they were about to head out in search of the Seidou pitcher, a thunderstorm brewed.

"Mei, how about we go after the strom?" Harada asked. He didn't want the already injured pitcher catching a cold.

Mei hesitantly nodded his head.

* * *

><p><strong>-Back to Sawamura-<strong>

Sawamura slowly made his way back to the Seidou dorms, but as if it couldn't get any worst, a thunderstorm started. At first, small droplets fell, but before long, a shower came. Everyone on the streets scurried away, leaving the lonely hurt pitcher to wander the streets alone.

Although it was raining, it was a blessing for the pitcher as Sawamura started to cry. The sound of rain drowned out his sorrowful cries while the droplets of rain masked his tears. His walk back to Seidou took a good half hour, all the while, the relentless storm kept going, but he was glad, glad that he was alone and able to let things out without catching attention.

The pouring rain started to take a toll on Sawamura, every droplet of rain siphoned heat from his already cold body, but the young pitcher couldn't feel any of it, instead, the pain in his heart was all that emanated within his body.

_'It hurts...I know I'm not a good pitcher, but it still hurts...'_ as much as he tried to not let Mei's words bother him, the pain and agony of those words and the fact that Mei now hated him resided deep within his heart. He placed his left hand on top of his left chest, where he put pressure in attempt to subside the pain, but to no avail. _'Mei...please don't hate me...don't leave me...I-I-I'm sorry...' _Sawamura quickly clasped his left hand over his mouth as another sob broke out.

As the pitcher reached Seidou, he saw the empty baseball field and bullpen. Slowly, in a dead manner, he walked over to the bullpen, pulled out a basket of baseballs and started to pitch into the net, ball after ball, throw after throw.

* * *

><p><strong>-In the Seidou dorms-<strong>

*RING RING*

"Hello." Miyuki picked up.

"Hey Miyuki, is Sawamura ok?" Harada asked.

"Who's this? And what about Sawamura?" Miyuki, who was confused, asked.

At the mention of Sawamura's name, everyone's attention fell onto Miyuki.

"It's Harada...Is Sawamura back at Seidou? Is he ok?" Harada said in a very worried tone.

"No he's not back yet...what happened to him?" Miyuki pressed on.

"He was over here earlier today and..." Harada replied, but Miyuki's attention was abruptly cut off.

"Hey guys! That baka is outside pitching." Jun shouted, catching everyone's attention. Jun stared out the dorm room window.

"Sorry Harada, gotta go..." Miyuki quickly hung up and ran out, along with whoever was in the room, towards the bullpen.

"Hey BAKAMURA." Kuramochi shouted.

"What are you doing? Trying to get sick?" Jun asked.

But Sawamura kept pitching, ignoring everyone.

"Sawamura, stop and go back inside." Tetsuya said, but he too was ignored. Everyone's jaws pretty much dropped as they least expected Sawamura to ignore Tetsuya.

Miyuki walked up to the pitcher and grabbed his arm as he was about to throw another ball. _'He's so cold...'_ Miyuki noted.

"Sawamura, what are you doing? Everyone's worried. Stop pitching at once and go back inside." Miyuki semi-yelled at the southpaw.

Sawamura turned to look at Miyuki. His eyes were red and puffy with tears streaming down, his bottom lips were trembling as if he were about to cry.

Miyuki stared back speechless.

"I-I'm...sorry..." Sawamura whispered as he dropped the ball and started to walk towards the dorms.

Everyone stared at the pitcher's lifeless form making his way to the dorms. They were at a loss for words.

Suddenly, Sawamura collapsed, falling onto the wet muddy baseball field. "Sawamura?!" was the last thing the pitcher heard before he drifted off into pitch darkness.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Time to go back to the drawing board for what's to come. Next chapter may be out in 1-2wks (I didn't write it yet...hopefully it doesn't take that long).


	7. Ch7 - Embarrassing and Caring

**A/N**: Thanks for the review! We shall find out what happened to Sawamura :O

**Chapter 6 Recap**: Mei explodes and chastises Sawamura, from the built up annoyance and difficulties he was facing ever since getting injured. Sawamura quickly leaves Inashiro and heads back to Seidou in pouring rain, where he decides to practice pitching under the heavy downfall. The Seidou first strings catch him and force him back into the dorms, but as he makes way, he faints.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 7 - Embarrassing and Caring<strong>

"Sawamura!" everyone shouted as the pitcher collapsed onto the muddy ground.

Miyuki ran up to the pitcher, turned him over and started carrying him back into the dorm soon as Miyuki, with Sawamura in his arms, entered the pitcher's room, Miyuki headed for the bed to lay Sawamura down.

"Wait up Miyuki, he's soaking wet, we should dry him off before putting him on the bed." Chris said in concern.

Masuko quickly grabbed his blanket from his bed and laid it on the floor. "Put him there so we can get him a change of clothes."

All the while, Ryosuke went to grab a clean dry pair of clothing and towel for Sawamura.

Once Miyuki laid Sawamura on the soft blanket, he stared at everyone. "Ok, who's going to change his clothing?"

Everyone else stared back at him without reply.

Tetsuya bent over and felt the pitcher's forehead. "He has a high fever, we better hurry..." the concerned captain noted while staring at the others.

"Miyuki, you do it!" Jun quickly said.

"Me, why me?" Miyuki questioned.

"Cause you're a battery with him..." Jun threw out the excuse, while everyone nodded in agreement.

"Well someone's going to have to help me." Miyuki said as he put Sawamura in a sitting position so that he can unclad the pitcher out of the wet clothing.

After stripping Sawamura of his shirt, pants and socks, Miyuki took the towel and started to dry the pitcher's cold body.

"Hey, hurry up a bit!" Jun shouted.

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Miyuki retorted, but he knew that he had to work fast as the pitcher's body temperature was well below norm.

Miyuki finished wiping the pitcher down and was about to put dry clothing on when Jun lightly slapped Miyuki's head.

"What was that for?!" Miyuki shouted.

"His boxers are still wet, don't you have to change him out of those too?"

"WHAAAAAT?!" a shocked Miyuki replied, baffled.

"Yeah, you should, and you should wipe him down there as well." Ryosuke noted as he pointed at the object he was referring to.

Miyuki stared at the pitcher as a slight blush grew on his face. Hesitantly, with his eyes closed, he reached towards the pitcher's boxers.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING" Jun quickly interjected before Miyuki could do anything.

"WHAT? You told me to take them off!" Miyuki yelled at his upperclassman.

"Idiot!" Jun noted before he took a clean towel and placed it over Miyuki's hands, which were holding onto the boxers, so that it covered Sawamura's bottom half. "There!"

_'Ooops'_ Miyuki blushed as he realised he was about to reveal everything to everyone. Miyuki proceeded to take off the boxers, making sure the towel Jun laid was still covering the lower half of Sawamura's body.

"Here." Ryosuke handed Miyuki a towel.

"Can't you do it?!" Miyuki said while blushing.

"Nope, you're the battery." Ryosuke said bluntly.

"But...Chris-senpai is also a batt..." Miyuki stopped mid sentence as Chris gave him a glare._  
><em>

"Fine..." Miyuki started to quickly run the towel over Sawamura's body to dry off any lingering water.

Finally, they started to clothe the pitcher in dry clothing. Miyuki then carried Sawamura onto his bed, putting a blanket over him.

Chris felt Sawamura's forehead. "Hey guys, we need to cool his head down a bit."

"His fever's pretty high, we should tell the coach or bring him to the doctors." Kuramoch stated.

"The coach's gone out of town, the rest of the staff's off too, and it's Sunday, the clinic's not opened." Tetsuya replied in a worried tone, with his usual serious face.

"We should look after Sawamura-chan. Can't let his fever get too high." Masuko said.

"How about we take turns. We should take one to two hour shifts, by then it'll be early in the morning and whoever wakes up first takes over." Chris suggested.

Everyone nodded their head in acknowledgement.

"How do we decide the order?"

"We'll do a random draw."

With that, the seven first string players drew numbers out of a hat.

"I guess I'm first." Tetsuya held up a paper with the number one for all to see.

From there, their shifts started.

* * *

><p><strong>-About 5am in the morning-<strong>

"Miyuki, wake up!" Jun gave the catcher a push.

"Whaaa..." Miyuki jumped into a sitting position on his bed. "Is it time already?" the still half dazed catcher asked.

"Yeah, it's your turn!" Jun said before leaving back to his room to grab a few hours of sleep.

Miyuki made his way to Sawamura's room and sat down on the floor next to the bed. He placed his hand on Sawamura's forehead. _'Hmmm, the temperature seems ok so far...'_ There he leaned his back against the bed frame and dropped his head on top the mattress, where he stared into the semi-dark ceiling of the room.

Unknowingly, the catcher's eyelids started getting heavier as he slowly drifted off back to sleep.

The next thing the catcher knew was an obnoxious voice calling at him.

"MIYUKI! WAKE UP..." Kuramochi shouted as he tried to wake the pitcher up.

Miyuki stirred in his slumber, opened his eyes to find a fuming Kuramochi.

"What's...wrong..." Miyuki asked in a half awake voice while yawning.

"You fell asleep...where's Sawamura?"

"He's right here." Miyuki reached his hand upwards to point at the sleeping pitcher.

"WAKE UP! He's not here!"

Miyuki turned his head around to look at the bed and realised Sawamura was missing. He quickly jumped onto his feet in shock.

"Where's Sawamura?" the ever growing concerned catcher asked.

"That's what I'm asking you...you were supposed to watch him..." Kuramochi said in a chastising tone.

"Crap..." Miyuki and Kuramochi quickly ran off in search of the sick pitcher.

* * *

><p><strong>-Back 15 minutes-<strong>

Sawamura stirred in his bed before he abruptly woke up.

He looked around the room and noticed someone sleeping in a weird position next to him.

_'Miyuki...'_ Sawamura thought as he saw the person's face. _'What's happening...'_ the pitcher sat up, but immediately his head started to pound. His hand clasped over his throbbing forehead in attempt to quell the pain of an exploding sensation.

He sat there for a while, recollecting his composure. His breathing was hard and laboured. Once the pain subsided, Sawamura got off the bed. _'I need water...' _he noted as he went to get a cup.

_'Great...the pitcher's empty...'_ the now disgruntled southpaw turned around and headed towards the door, but before exiting, he realised that Miyuki didn't have any blankets covering him. The rain was still pouring and the weather was a bit cold, so Sawamura walked back over to Miyuki, grabbed the blanket atop his bed and fanned it on top of the catcher.

Sawamura then exited his dorm room and made his way to the cafe to grab more water. As he walked past the baseball diamond, a flashback of Mei chastising him rushed into his head. He clasped his hand on this head in attempt to subside the pain. _'Mei...do you hate me?'_ the saddened and hurting pitcher questioned.

After filling the pitcher with water, Sawamura made his way back. Reaching the foot of the stairs to the dorm building, he could hear yelling coming from his room. He looked upwards towards the room door and saw Kuramochi and Miyuki walking out, yelling at each other.

"You idiot, the guy's sick and you fall asleep on your watch?! Do you want him to die?" Kuramochi yelled at the defenceless catcher.

"Sawamura! Where did you go?!" Miyuki shouted at the southpaw standing at the bottom of the stairs, completely ignoring Kuramochi's question.

The younger pitcher jumped in shock from Miyuki's angered voice. He looked down at the pitcher of water to avoid eye contact

"I'm sorry." came a weak and feeble voice. Fear was evident in the pitcher's voice and it perked Kuramochi and Miyuki's concern.

"Sawamura, I didn't mean to yell. You're sick, I'm just worried, you should stay in bed." Miyuki tried to calm the jumpy pitcher. _'What happened while you were at Inashiro...'_ the concerned catcher thought.

"Come on back up here and get in bed." Kuramochi said as he waved his arm upwards.

The meek pitcher nodded and started to walk up the steps. He started to suddenly breathe harder and a sudden cold sweat ran throughout his body. As he went beyond the halfway mark, his suddenly got light headed, his vision was getting blurry, but he continued moving forward. Without warning, his grip on the railing got weak and there, he tipped backwards.

"SAWAMURA!" both Miyuki and Kuramochi yelled as they started rushing forward towards the falling pitcher, but they were too late.

*BANG*BAM*SPLASH* A loud noise echoed through the morning skies as the southpaw fell down the stairs and landed hard on the concrete floor below. The pitcher of water splashed across the ground, soaking the southpaw.

"SAWAMURA!" the two ran their way down the stairs and knelt next to the unconscious pitcher.

Miyuki grabbed the pitcher's hand and placed a hand on the pitcher's head.

"Miyuki..." Kuramochi said in shock. His eyes were stone cold and his usual smirk was replaced by a dire frown.

Miyuki looked towards the direction that Kuramochi's eyes pointed. A small trail of blood, originating from Sawamura's head, crept its way across the pavement. Miyuki's heart sank as his body went cold.

"GO CALL THE AMBULANCE!" Miyuki yelled at the top of his lungs. Miyuki quickly checked that Sawamura's pulse present and that the pitcher was still breathing.

"Get me a clean cloth too!" Miyuki yelled towards Kuramochi, who ran back upstairs into Sawamura's room to grab a phone.

Kuramochi came back out with a clean cloth almost immediately all the while on the phone.

_'Please be ok Eijun...'_ a worried Miyuki preyed as he carefully applied pressure on the wound with the clean cloth. _'Please...please be ok...'_

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** First a fever, now a bleeding head...guess Eijun can't catch a break :/


	8. Ch8 - Confronting and Forgetting

**A/N**: Thanks for the reviews and adding this story onto the following/favourite list!~

**Chapter 7 Recap**: Sawamura gets a fever, the Seidou first strings take turn looking after him. When the pitcher wakes up, he wanders off. Upon returning to the dorms, he falls down the stairs and hits his head, falling unconscious.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 8 - Confronting and Forgetting<strong>

It was into the evening, a few of the Seidou baseball members lingered in the hospital watching over Sawamura. The pitcher had been taken to the hospital early that day, where he was examined by the doctor.

Sawamura slept in the hospital bed, face all peaceful, but deep down inside, the players didn't know what to expect and whether the pitcher would wake or not.

"Did we ever get a hold of Sawamura's family?" Tetsuya asked.

"No...I couldn't find their number anywhere. Sawamura told me they were going away to visit some family for the whole summer." Miyuki solemnly said.

After the short dialogue, all went quiet again as they waited in hopes that the pitcher would soon wake up. The atmosphere stayed quiet for a good few minutes until a loud voice barged in.

"SAWAMURA!" a sudden voice shouted as a blonde hair teen burst through the room doors. Following suite was Harada.

"How's Sawamura?" Mei quickly asked while gasping for air.

Everyone shot him a glare. They had heard what happened between the two pitchers over the phone when Harada called to ask where everyone was after Mei and Harada arrived to an empty Seidou. Harada was forced to explain what happened.

Miyuki immediately walked up to the panting pitcher, grabbed Mei by the collar and pushed him against the wall.

"WHY ARE YOU HERE? DIDN'T YOU DO ENOUGH TO SAWAMURA ALREADY?!" Miyuki yelled in anger. Deep inside, he was also chastising himself for not watching over Sawamura, but Mei was the person he took his anger out on.

Mei stood there motionless, he diverted his gaze away from Miyuki's piercing eyes, obviously from knowing that he was in the wrong.

Miyuki then raised his fist up, readying to strike Mei in the face. The pitcher just clasped his eyes closed bracing for Miyuki's fist.

"Miyuki, stop. He's already injured and take a look at him, he regrets his action the most. Anyways, you didn't help in any case." Kuramochi took a stab at Miyuki.

Miyuki looked at Mei's face again and noticed a drop of tear escaping the pitcher's clasped eyes. _'Dammit...'_ the Seidou catcher cursed in his mind as he let Mei go and walked away out of the room. He was fuming, at himself and at Mei, for hurting Sawamura. Once in the sitting area, the catcher immediately fell onto an empty seat and dug his face into his palms.

Mei stood in the room looking at the floor. He was awaiting for the others to chastise him, but none came. It was silent. _'Am I getting the silent treatment?' _his heart sank as the pressure around him grew. _'Please...just say something...'_ the pitcher bit his bottom lips.

"Let's give Mei some time alone." Chris spoke up, obviously feeling discomfort from the silence.

Slowly, everyone walked out the room, passing by Mei without a word.

As Harada was about to leave, he placed a hand on Mei's shoulders. A soothing whisper could be heard before the Inashiro catcher left the room. "Everything's going to be ok..."

Another single tear dropped down Mei's face as the clasping of the door's latch could be heard. Mei slowly, in fear, walked up to the unconscious pitcher. At first, his gaze was diverted away in fears of what he would see, but eventually he summoned the courage to look Sawamura directly.

"Ei-Eijun..." Mei whispered as he knelt next to the sleeping pitcher. Realising that the pitcher wasn't responding, Mei's sapphire like orbs glistened with a layer of tears.

"Eijun...I'm sorry..." the older southpaw broke out in whispering cries. "I'm sorry...please...please wake up..." Mei started sniffing as tears slowly cascaded down his face. The pitcher was broken, emotionally. "I didn't mean any of it, I'm sorry...please wake up...I...I didn't mean it..." a pleading voice came as the pitcher fell onto his knees with his forehead pressed against the bed side.

Mei slowly reached for Sawamura's hand, but hesitated, as if afraid to break the already fragile unconscious pitcher. He also felt that he didn't deserve to touch or be near Sawamura at the moment. Reluctantly at first, he eventually summoned the courage to softly hold the younger southpaw's hand. He slowly lifted it and gently pressed the hand against his cheeks. _'Eijun...'_ Mei thought as he closed his eyes feeling some relief and comfort from being in contact with Sawamura.

Mei slowly opened his eyes, in hopes that the pitcher would greet him with big round orbs that sparkled amongst the sun's light and a big smirk plastered on his goofy face. But alas, reality was reality and dreams can only get one so far, nothing had change, the younger southpaw was still unconscious. Mei reached his other hand out towards Sawamura's face and slowly caressed the Seidou pitcher's cheeks.

Time ticked by slowly for Mei, he could hear ever tick of the clock's second hand. Every beat of his heart was like a drum being hit in his head. Everything was amplified. His world was crumbling and he was the catalyst that ignited it all.

Mei's breathing started to get heavier as reality became clearer. He bit his bottom lips subconsciously, his teeth piercing the delicate skin causing the wound to pool in a small pond of blood. Tears blurred his vision as he stared into the non-responding, yet peaceful looking pitcher laying in the hospital bed. Mei pleaded again in hopes his voice could reach the slumbering pitcher, "Eijun...please wake up...please...I'll do anything, I'll quit baseball if you want...I don't need anything, I...I...just need you..." Mei realised Sawamura was his one and only, nothing else mattered, nothing in the whole world could fill the void of losing the younger pitcher.

Mei broke into sobs, he was bawling his eyes out. He dug his face into Sawamura's arm, where his cries became muffled.

Everyone from outside of the room turned their gaze away to avoid watching the heart wrenching moment. Some had unshed tears held back, while everyone felt unrest deep within their hearts.

Mei continued crying and pleading for Sawamura to wake up, but nothing was happening. Eventually the older pitcher ceased his cries. Still sniffing with the occasional sob, he gently rested his head next to Sawamura's body and stared into the sleeping pitcher's face. One hand gently held Sawamura's hand, while the other continued to lightly caress Sawamura's cheeks. _'Eijun...'_

Suddenly, Mei felt a twitch from Sawamura's hand. His head perked up and his gaze fell intently on the potentially moving hand. _'Please...please wake up...please...'_ The anticipation was killing him as tears started to flood his eyes once again, this time, tears of hope.

Another twitch came as Mei revered in joy. "Eijun!" Mei shouted as he looked up into Sawamura's face in hopes that the pitcher would soon open his eyes, "Eijun, please wake up!"

Everyone waiting outside could hear Mei calling out for Sawamura, but this time with a hopeful tone.

"Did Sawamura wake up?" Tetsuya asked.

"Let's go in and check." Chris replied.

The minute they started to walk in, Mei looked at them, his face bright as tears of joy flowed out.

"Someone, get the doctor! Sawamura's waking up!" Mei shouted at them. Immediately, Kuramochi ran out of the room in search of a doctor.

Sawamura slowly opened his eyes. The light from the ceiling pierced his orbs as he squinted to clear the blurred vision. He tried to get up, but his body wouldn't move, wouldn't listen to him. He was able to move his fingers and that was pretty much it.

"Water..." the tired confused pitcher whispered through the dryness of his mouth. His head was pounding with pain as he tried to remain conscious.

Miyuki quickly ran to grab a cup of water. Upon returning to the bedside, he carefully tilted the cup into Sawamura's mouth. Droplets of water fell in and coated the dry mouth with moisture.

"Thank you..." Sawamura took a closer look at the person and realised it was Miyuki. "Thank you Miyuki..."

"Eijun! How are you feeling? Are you ok? Don't worry, the doctor's coming!" Mei quickly spoke with a concern filled tone and eagerness.

Sawamura looked at the speaker and stared at the person for a good few ten seconds.

"Eijun, what's wrong? Does it hurt somewhere?" Mei asked as he placed his hand over Sawamura's.

Sawamura immediately retracted a bit upon feeling Mei's touch. He quickly gazed back at Miyuki, eyes showing a hint of fear.

"Miyuki...who's...this person..." Sawamura whispered, his voice emanated much better after drinking water.

Everyone in the room looked at Mei in shock.

"Eijun..." Mei said in confusion. "It's me...Mei..." Mei reached a hand out towards the bed ridden pitcher.

Sawamura flinched while his other hand immediately grasped Miyuki's.

Mei noticed Sawamura's unease and backed away.

"Don't you remember Mei?" Miyuki asked in a calm voice, but deep within, he was full of concern.

Sawamura redirected his eyes to looked down on his bed sheets, then shook his head. He was like a little scared kid.

"How about everyone else?" Miyuki asked, which prompted the younger pitcher to look around the room.

"Chr-" the pitcher paused to think. "Chris-senpai?" he asked hesitantly.

Chris nodded his head in acknowledgement.

"Anyone else?" Miyuki asked again.

Sawamura looked around. He was like a little kid, trying to think of something he forgot. It was as if his head was about to explode. "No...I don't know anyone else...am I suppose?" Sawamura was getting agitated. His breathing was getting faster as he finally realised that he had forgotten something big.

"Don't worry Sawamura..." Miyuki and Chris tried to console the jumpy pitcher.

Not long after, the doctor came into the room.

"Doctor!" Mei exclaimed with urgency. "Eijun can't remember most of us! What's wrong?!"

"Sawamura-kun, you can't remember your friends?" the doctor asked in a concerned yet soothing voice.

Sawamura shook his head, with a scared expression plastered on his face, as if he had done something wrong.

The doctor walked over to the scared pitcher and placed a hand on Sawamura's shoulders.

"It's ok, don't worry, give it some time, you'll remember all your friends soon." the doctor smiled at Sawamura, which instantly caused the pitcher to lose a lot of tension from his worries.

"I know you just woke up, but try to get some rest. Same with you all, you guys have been here since this morning." The doctor said before he left the room.

Everyone, except Miyuki and Mei, followed the doctor out, where they spoke and questioned the doctor with regards to Sawamura.

The two second years watched the younger pitcher intently, which made Sawamura feel uncomfortable, until Mei suddenly broke the silence.

"Eijun...think hard and try to remember me...I'm Mei." Mei said with some optimism.

Sawamura's head was pounding, from his head injury, yet he tried to concentrate and dig into his memories, but alas, he couldn't remember. "I'm sorry...I don't know you..." a meek whisper came back. "Who are you?"

"I'm your boyfriend." a pleading voice replied as the older southpaw stepped closer to Sawamura's bed side.

"...boyfriend...?" Sawamura repeated confused.

"Yeah, I love you Eijun, you love me...we were going out." Mei tried to walk the confused pitcher down memory lane.

"B-but...you're a guy...and I'm a guy..." Sawamura face contorted in confusion as he tried to remember and make sense of the conversation.

Miyuki, on the other hand, burst into laughter. "Hahaha, Sawamura's got a point there Mei about both of you being guys, I think he completely forgot! Hahah"

The laughter startled both pitchers, which gained Miyuki a look of confusion from one and a glare of death from the other.

Mei walked over next to Miyuki. "How can someone forget about their orientation?!" Mei whispered angrily into Miyuki's ears.

"Hahah, I don't know, why don't you ask Sawamura?" Miyuki was, to an extent, enjoying the show. Miyuki leaned closer to Mei's ears and whispered, "What if he completely forgets his interest in guys?" The catcher broke into another fit of stifled chuckles.

This got Mei worried. _'What if what Miyuki says is true...'_ Concern fell unto Mei's face as fear of losing Sawamura crossed his mind. Mei didn't know what to say, he didn't want to push Sawamura too much such that Sawamura might become afraid of him.

"Sawamura, why don't you rest now? You've been through a lot." Miyuki interjected in to the silent room.

Sawamura nodded in acknowledgement. "Are you guys going to go?"

_'He said guys! He's also referring to me! He doesn't mind my presence here!'_ This was the single most promising statement Mei had heard from Sawamura thus far. "No, we're going to be staying here throughout the night with you." Mei quickly responded. "...if you don't mind..."

"I don't mind. Thank you..." Sawamura whispered in a diminishing volume as the pitcher slowly drifted into slumber. Just before the younger pitcher passed out, a soft whisper was heard. "...and sorry..." for an odd reason, Sawamura felt guilty for the words he said just now, but he didn't understand why, nor did he put much thought into it, needless to say, he felt the urge to apologise. The younger pitcher then completely passed out once again.

_'I'll wait for you Sawamura...now and forever, however long it takes...'_ Mei thought as he looked at the sleeping pitcher.

The two second years stood there for a few seconds before finding themselves seats, where they too rested for the night.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: This took longer than expected to write.

Anyways...I think I have an ending planned out, but will be off on vacation for 3 weeks :)

If I don't update by Wednesday this week, then the next update would be sometime week of Jan 4 to 10.

(And Happy New Years!)


	9. Ch9 - Criticising and Accepting

**A/N**: Happy New Year! Again, many thanks for the reviews and adding this story onto the following/favourite list!

**Chapter 8 Recap**: Sawamura gets a concussion and forgets a big portion of his school life, including his beloved, Mei! Will he ever remember?!

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 9 - Criticising and Accepting<strong>

"Is it me or does it seem like Bakamura is pitching a lot better after hitting his head?" Kuramochi half sarcastically asked.

"Yeah his form and everything got a lot better. His balls are faster than before and his old habits are gone." Chris replied while staring at the southpaw.

"How's that possible?" Jun asked in shock.

"Over the last 2 weeks, Miyuki and I pretty much re-taught him his pitching form, or rather his pitching form but correcting and improving various things." Chris continued writing notes on the southpaw as he observed from the dugout.

"Kahahaha, I guess something good came out of the memory loss. Who could have thought you can knock the baka out of someone." Kuramochi laughed loudly from the dugout.

"Does that mean you'll call him Sawamura now?" Furuya asked with a stoic face.

Kuramochi turned to look at Furuya, "No."

Meanwhile, on the baseball diamond, Sawamura was sneezing multiple times non-stop. Miyuki ran up to Sawamura with a troubled look.

"Are you ok?" Miyuki asked in concern, afraid that Sawamura would be getting sick again. "Maybe you should stop and rest." A very worried Miyuki stated.

Seidou was currently having a practise match with Inashiro and Sawamura was the starter.

"Don't worry Miyuki, the doctor said I could go back to my usual routine already. You're worrying too much! Sometimes you're just like my mother, always worrying..." the southpaw shrugged off Miyuki's worries as he wrapped his arm around the catcher, but caught a glimpse of displeasure on Miyuki's face. "...ummm and caring like a great friend."

Miyuki took a glimpse over at the Inashiro dugout and saw Mei glare daggers into him. _'Sorry Mei...'_ Miyuki inwardly apologised as he knew Mei didn't like it when Sawamura got too close to another guy.

Sawamura then leaned in to whisper, which, from Mei's point of view, seemed like Sawamura was leaning in for a kiss.

"Is it me or is that Mei guy creepy? I think he's staring at me again..." Sawamura whispered.

Miyuki, from the mound, saw Mei gawk then sneeze, which causing Miyuki to inwardly laugh.

"You're imagining things...besides we're in a game right now, he needs to pay attention to the opponent, anyways, Mei's your boy..." Miyuki paused to rethink his words. "he's your friend...friends care about each other, so he cares for you, he's not..." Miyuki had to force the next word out his mouth, "...creepy..." It was stated as if Miyuki couldn't believe himself.

Again, Miyuki saw Mei sneeze a few more times. _'I guess someone was talking about Sawamura as well just now.' _

The rest of the game flew by relatively fast. Sawamura pitched 7 innings without any hits, which was a surprise to everyone.

At the end of the game, Mei started to walk over towards Sawamura, but Miyuki quickly stopped the elder southpaw.

"Kazuya, whats wrong?" Mei asked confused.

"It's better if you don't talk to him today."

"WHY?!"

"Shhhh, not so loud. Sawamura thinks you're..." Miyuki place a hand on Mei's shoulder, "...creepy..."

Mei's face immediately saddened, but he understood. "You gotta help me out Kazuyaaa...pleaseeee..." Mei said in a pleading voice.

"Don't worry, we're doing our best to get his memories back. Plus, he still can't remember most of the guys here.

Mei nodded in defeat and was about to turn away until, to both the second years surprise, a voice came screaming.

"Mei-senpai..." Sawamura came panting. "Thank you very much for the game!" Sawamura said bowing.

"Thank you Ei...umm Sawamura..." Mei said somewhat heartbroken from not beimg able to say the yoinger pitcher's first name. He then immediately turned around to take leave so as to not look like a creep.

"Ummm, Mei-senpai, I'm sorry if I treated you badly before...it's just I can't remember. Miyuki tells me you're a friend, so I'll trust him...give me some more time to remember...plus you're not a creep..." Sawamura accidently said the last bit and realising it, he immediately covered his mouth.

An invisible arrow pierced Mei's heart as the last bit of words came out Sawamura's mouth. Nonetheless, Mei was happy to hear the words.

"Thank you Sawamura." Mei said happily. "I got to go, my teams leaving, but maybe we can get together some day."

"That sounds great!"

Mei walked back to his teammates with a smile on his face.

"You seem happy, Sawamura remember everything?" Harada asked.

"He acknowledges me as a friend." Mei said.

"As your boyfriend?" Harada asked in concern.

"As a friend..." Mei replied, he was annoyed at Harada's questioning, which knocked him back down to reality.

"So he can't rememb..." before Harada could finish, Mei cut him off.

"Just keep walking..." Mei said, his smile was uncladded from his face, now replaced by a pout. Harada got the message and immediately kept shut.

* * *

><p><em><strong>- A couple days later, at the doctor's -<strong>_

"Good Sawamura, you're recovering well." The doctor said in a reassuring tone. "Your friends also say that you remember a lot more about your school life. From the looks of it, nothing of your family life was forgotten as your mom confirmed, so you should remember everything fairly soon. The doctor patted Sawamura on the head.

"Sensei...I'm not a kid anymore." Sawamura pouted.

"Haha thats right." the doctor ruffled Sawamura's head a bit more before letting the pitcher go.

Sawamura walked out the examination room to meet Miyuki and Mei.

"How everything go?" Mei asked.

"The doctor said I'm recovering well, I should remember everythig soon."

"Haha, that's great, then maybe you'll remember who the hell Mei is." Miyuki laughed as the three walked to the bus stop.

Mei shot a glare a Miyuki and threw a soft fist at the catcher's upper arm.

"By the way...is your elbow injury ok?" Miyuki asked Mei.

"WHAT?!" Sawamura shouted, which startled both second years. "You got injured?"

"Yeah...it's a lot better, the doctor said I can pitch a few innings, like I did in our last game, but full recovery would take a few more weeks."

"Oh that's good, at least there's nothing permanent." Sawamura said with concern.

Mei was fluttering with joy on how much Sawamura cared for him. _'Maybe I should get Sawamura to kiss my arm, I bet I would get better instantly.' _Mei thought. Mei's gaze then fell onto Miyuki.

_'I know what you're thinking Mei...it's creepy...not gonna happen anytime soon...'_ Miyuki's message was telepathically shot towards Mei via his gaze. Mei then immediately stopped his impure thoughts and blushed at being caught.

"Yeah, I should be able to play in the upcoming tournament. We'll be facing off then." Mei smirked as he threw the challenge to the other southpaw.

"That sounds great!" Sawamura replied with sparkling eyes that showed his never dying enthusiasm for baseball.

Mei loved seeing Sawamura smile. _'I can just die right now.'_ Mei thought as his spirit seemingly fluttered away into heaven.

The three parted ways as Inashiro headed back.

* * *

><p><strong><em>- Few weeks later -<em>**

Mei was getting impatient. His progress with Sawamura was yielding naught. He started to pester Miyuki more frequently, but knew that Miyuki could only do so much. He also tried to throw many hints at Sawamura, some of which made the younger southpaw uncomfortable.

Mei and Miyuki were sitting riverside staring into the blue sky, while having a couple drinks.

"Say Kazuya, what if..." Mei started speaking in attempt to throw another idea so to jog Sawamura's memories.

"...no, it's not going to happen, it'll come back when it comes..." Miyuki immediately interjected.

"But you didn't even hear me out!" Mei whined. He too knew that he had to wait, but waiting was difficult for the impatient pitcher. "What if someone steals him away from me while I wait?!"

Miyuki turned his head over to Mei and gave him an exhausted look. Suddenly a thought sparked and his eyes sparkled with a devilish glow. "Come to think of it, he's been really chatty with someone on the baseball team." Miyuki slyly said while moving into a pondering gesture.

"WHO?!" Mei immediately spring up in full alertness looking eagerly at Miyuki.

"Oops." Miyuki quickly covered his mouth, as he feigned to have let a secret slip.

"Tell me who!" Mei got into a pouncing position.

"No one!" Miyuki continued his act. "I didn't say anything, forget about it."

Mei's eyes grew wide. _'Could it be...'_ Mei stared down Miyuki as flashbacks, of all the moments that Sawamura and Miyuki were seen closely together, rushed into his mind.

"It's you isn't it?!" Mei shouted as the southpaw jumped atop and grabbed Miyuki's collar. "Are you going out with Eijun?! I trusted you!" Mei lifted his left fist, readying it to strike Miyuki.

"WHOA! Wait, hold on! I was joking" Miyuki quickly shouted as he lifted his arms up across his face to block the positioned fist. "I was joking, Sawamura isn't flirting with anyone! IT WAS A JOKE."

At that, Mei immediately calmed down. He still sat on Miyuki's body, displeasure plastered on his face from the not so funny joke Miyuki just pulled.

"We're going to make Eijun remember, and you're going to help me." Mei said bluntly with a pout on his face.

"Aren't you a little obsessive right now?" Miyuki asked with a hint of fear in his voice.

Mei stared at Miyuki. "You're right...I should wait for his memories to come back. I'm just afraid someone else would make a move on him, and that I would lose him." Mei slowly got off of Miyuki and laid back down next to the catcher.

"Don't worry...you're thinking too much..." Miyuki said, a sigh of relief came as the pitcher got off of him.

"Hey! What about we take him to the cafe, and I do what he did before?" Mei perked up with the suggestion. "Maybe he would remember stuff..."

Miyuki thought for a while, "Hmmm, that might work, Sawamura and you did hit it off after the cafe incident." Another idea popped into Miyuki's mind and he sarcastically said, "You know what? Maybe you should dress like a princess too...you were the one who suggested that to the manager back then. Maybe his memories would get a kick out of you dressing up." Miyuki threw the princess idea out, but knew Mei wouldn't go for it.

"YOU'RE RIGHT!~ We can do that, he's sure to remember something as embarrassing as that!" Mei was in delight, his eyes twinkling with hope, he was willing to do everything and anything to get Sawamura to remember him.

Miyuki stared in awe, his jaw dropped as Mei agreed to dress up as a princess. _'...he's desperate...'_

"Kazuya, please help me get Sawamura to the cafe." Mei half asked, half stated.

"Uhhh, just don't overdo it." Miyuki replied with a hesitant tone.

* * *

><p><em><strong>-A week later -<strong>_

"Sawamura, the cafe's here." Miyuki told the southpaw.

"Wow, this place looks interesting!" Sawamura looked around as they entered.

"You don't remember this place?" Miyuki asked.

"I came here before? Well, I guess it does feel familiar, maybe something will pop into my head. Hey look, they have a theme night happening today, this place looks fun!~" Sawamura was getting excited.

The manager came walking up to Miyuki and Sawamura. "Ahhh, Sawamura-chan, good to see you!~ I hope you're feeling a lot better!" the overzealous man said.

"Do I know you?" Sawamura bluntly said while racking his brain for clues.

"Oh noes~ you don't remember me either?" the manager sobbed. "You poor thing, you must be going through a lot." the manager went towards Sawamura to give him a hug.

Sawamura quickly held his hands up in attempt to push the manager away.

"Haha...manager...if Mei sees you doing this, he's going to kill you..." Miyuki meekly whispered.

"Oh right...sorry about that Sawamura-chan. You guys can sit here, let me go get Mei for you." the manager said as he wandered off.

"Mei's here?" Sawamura asked in confusion.

"Yup." Miyuki didn't say much as he didn't want to give away too much.

Not long after, a waitress came to serve the two.

"Hi, can I take your orders?" the waitress asked.

Miyuki looked up and started to laugh, which caused the waitress to blush profusely.

"What's so funny Miyuki?" Sawamura asked.

"N-n-nothing." the catcher forced the word out his mouth while trying to stifle the remaining chuckles.

Sawamura looked up towards the waitress. "Sorry..." he stated, but stopped to stare at the person in front of him. "You look familiar..."

"Really?" the cross dressing waitress, Mei, asked.

"Hahaha, he's right, you do look familiar." Miyuki continued to laugh. "Sorry, can I take a picture of you?" Miyuki held up his phone positioning it to take a picture.

"NO!" Mei, in a princess uniform, quickly grabbed the phone out of Miyuki's hands, which caused Sawamura to jump in his seat. Mei stared at the startled pitcher and calmly said, "Sorry, I mean no...", which in turn caused Miyuki to erupt into another fit of laughter.

After taking the orders, Mei went into the kitchen.

"You don't recognise or remember anything about this place or the people?" Miyuki asked.

"Nope, nothing rings a bell." Sawamura replied.

_'Is he that clueless...he can't even see Mei dressed as a princess? Then again, Mei did do a good job in dressing as a girl.' _Miyuki thought as he started to inwardly chuckle again.

Mei, in disguise, reappeared after a couple minutes, which was enough time for him to stumble into the conversation Miyuki and Sawamura were having.

"Anyways..." Sawamura looked around, making sure Mei wasn't around, he caught sight of the waitress, but ignored her. "Are you sure that Mei guy was a friend?"

"Of course." Miyuki asked puzzled. He took a glance at Mei to see what he should do, which Mei told him to continue with the conversation.

"I don't know...he seems to be checking me out every time I meet him, I mean I already told him I don't swing that way, but it seems he doesn't listen. Plus, he called me his boyfriend before, is he wacked or crazy? He's just weird and creepy." Everything Sawamura had thought about Mei flew out of his mouth and directly slapped Mei in the face, unbeknownst to Sawamura.

Miyuki stared at the younger pitcher trying to process everything that Sawamura just said. He took a glimpse at Mei, who seemed to be pained by the words. "What are you saying Sawamura, you're just thinking too much! Mei's your friend, just like me!" Miyuki said in attempt to seal the hole in the sinking ship.

"You're different, I feel a lot more comfortable around you. When Mei's here, it sometime gets unbearable." Sawamura bluntly said.

_'Oi oi...Mei is here...'_ Miyuki thought as he clasped his hand over his head.

"Those feelings, could they be mistaken for more of a feeling of anxiousness when you're around him...like maybe you like him?" Miyuki blurted.

This caught Mei's attention, who was standing near the two Seidou players with the drinks in hand.

"No, like I said, I don't swing that way, I don't like him. I'm just being friendly with him cause you said he was my friend." Sawamura shot back at Miyuki.

Miyuki could see the final nail being hit into the coffin. He looked towards Mei and saw a few droplets of tear run down his face.

Sawamura looked at the direct Miyuki was staring at and saw the waitress crying. "Are you ok? Did you hurt yourself?" Sawamura quickly got up off his seat and grabbed the tray from the waitress in attempt to help her.

As soon as Sawamura placed the tray on the table, Mei, the waitress, pulled the wig off his head and placed it next to the tray. Mei looked Sawamura in the eyes.

"Eijun...I-i-i'm...sorry..." Mei was sniffing as tears started to cascade down his face.

"M-mei..." Sawamura said in shock and panic as he realised the older pitcher hard heard everything. Sawamura took a look at Miyuki, who diverted his gaze. He then reached a hand out towards Mei, "...I-I didn't..."

Mei quickly backed away and interrupted the pitcher. "I'm sorry...I'll stop bothering you..." he said amidst deep pants and quiet sniffs. "You'll never...you'll never...see me again...I promise...sorry..." Mei bit his lips in attempt to quell his whimpers. He rubbed his eyes with his arm, quickly turned around and ran to the back room, where he changed as fast as he could back into his clothes, before running out of the back exit into the night.

Sawamura stood there, an uneasy feeling erupted deep within him. His left hand went to clasp over his heart. _'I should be happy that he doesn't want to see me anymore...but...why does it hurt...'_ he thought in confusion as a single tear rolled down his cheeks. _'I should apologise to Mei...'_

"Sawamura..." Miyuki quietly whispered, unsure what he could do at the moment, "...are you ok?"

But without notice, the pitcher started to run for the main door.

"Sawamura! Careful there's..." Miyuki shouted as the southpaw ran straight towards a puddle of spilt water on the ground, but his warning was too late.

"WHAAA" Sawamura shouted as he slipped head first towards the ground. A loud bang was heard as the pitcher's head made contact with the ground.

Miyuki flinched in pain as he saw the accident unfold. He quickly ran up to Sawamura and helped the pitcher off the ground. "Are you ok? Did you hit your head hard? Does it hurt?"

"OUUCH" Sawamura slowly got up to a sitting position with Miyuki's help. He rubbed the top of his head to sooth the pain from the fall while trying to recollect his thoughts.

"Are you ok?" Miyuki asked in concern again.

Sawamura looked up at Miyuki, his orbs starting to fill with tears, some finding its way down his face.

"I...I have to find Mei...I remember..."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Next chapter out in a week or two. Thanks :)


	10. Ch10 - Beginnings and Endings

**A/N**: Thanks a lot for the reviews and adding this story onto the following/favourite list! I'm very grateful for them!~

I hope this chapter doesn't get too confusing...at one point, _**BOLD AND ITALICISED **_letters indicate flashbacks.

Originally this was suppose to be 2 chapters, but I merged it (sorry if it's too long)

**Chapter 9 Recap**: Mei gets a crushing dose of reality via Sawamura's comments and finally lets go of Sawamura, but as luck would have it, the younger pitcher slips, hits his head and remembers everything. What will happen now? Will Sawamura find Mei? Mei go back to Sawamura or has Mei's heart been crushed beyond repairable?!

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 10 - Beginnings and Endings<strong>

Sawamura ran out the cafe immediately, he just had to find Mei. His heart was beating at a hundred miles an hour while anxiety flooded his mind. _'Mei...I'm sorry, I didn't mean those words...'_

Sawamura ran around the dark streets in search of the Inashiro southpaw, his boyfriend, but was unable to find him. He stopped for a bit, panting to catch his breath. Looking around, he noticed the bright lights and sea of people in the night market. Various people were walking around, but his heart sank as sight of the one he was looking for was not found.

_'Mei...where are you?'_ Sawamura thought taking off again.

* * *

><p><strong>- At Mei -<strong>

Mei was walking slowly under the dark skies. His random turns had brought him to the night market as well. Everywhere around him, people were laughing and playing, talking and holding hands.

_'What are you so happy about?'_ the depressed pitcher thought as he saw a couple walk by laughing amidst their world of love. He turned to walk in the opposite direction, but was met with others alike. _'Great...'_

He was lost in thought, he didn't know what to do anymore, his purpose in life seemed to have vanished with those piercing words that left bleeding holes in his heart. His eyes were red and puffy, breathing was deep and heart ached. He squeezed his hands into fists to release some anger, anger and resentment towards his feeble self, but the pain he felt never eased. _'Curse this pain...' _he thought as a single tear rolled down.

* * *

><p><strong>- Back to Sawamura -<strong>

Sawamura's head was spinning from all the running, the lights and the people on the streets. He stopped to catch his breath, but keep his eyes wandering in search of Mei.

"I hate you!" was heard across the street. Two elementary school kids were fighting as one kid's ice cream cone was knocked onto the floor. " I don't want to see you again!" the kid shouted at the other.

Sawamura quickly ran over to the two as the kid being scolded yielded a face plastered with hurt.

"What's wrong?" Sawamura asked in concern. Sawamura could feel the damage of those words, the impact it had on the other kid. _'Did Mei make the same hurt face I wonder...' _

"He knocked over my ice cream!"

Sawamura looked over at the silent boy who was staring at the ground, holding his own ice cream cone outwards towards the other kid.

"You can have mine..." the boy meekly said. "I'm sorry..."

"I don't want yours." the angry boy shouted back.

Sawamura jumped in to quickly quell the tension. "I'm sure your friend didn't mean to knock over your cone. How about onii-chan buy you another one?" Sawamura smiled at the two kids.

The two kids looked up at Sawamura and smiled at him.

As soon as the kids got the ice cream cone, they started walking away. Sawamura looked at them happily, _'I hope Mei would forgive me as easily as this...'_ he thought as anxiety crept up again. _'...what if he hates me for what I said...'_

Sawamura turned around to return to his search, but was stopped when he heard a boy shout at him.

"Thank you onii-chan!~" It was the quiet boy, he was waving his hands at Sawamura.

Sawamura waved back while smiling. "No problem! Don't fight anymore!"

As they headed their own ways, a sudden loud crack was heard. Sawamura looked towards the offending noise and found that an air conditioning machine had broken off the wall of an apartment. He glanced down at the path of where it was going to crash on the ground and saw the two kids, sitting and chatting happily.

"WATCH OUT!" Sawamura shouted as he made a dash towards the kids, his heart beating with fear.

The two kids looked up and saw the machine falling their way, they tried to get up to dodge the falling object, but was unable to do so fast enough.

*CRASH* the sound of the machine hitting the ground rang throughout the city streets.

Bystanders quickly called the police as news of the incident started to propagate throughout the busy street.

* * *

><p><strong>- Back to Mei -<strong>

Mei was walking solemnly through the streets, weaving in between the people. He was lost in what to do.

"Hey, there was an accident that happened just up ahead."

"What happened?"

"Well I heard an air conditioner fell on two small kids."

"Are they ok?"

"One boy's injured, I heard the machine landed right on him. I hope they're ok."

"Let's go check it out."

The two guys quickly ran towards the direction Mei was heading.

Mei didn't really put any thought into the accident. His mind was consumed with other issues, but needless to say, he still went in the direction to take a look at what was happening, out of curiosity and concern.

As he got closer, the crowd got denser. He could hear a kid cry a short distance away. There were lots of people talking.

"Oh my, that older boy saved the two young ones. I hope he makes it."

"The ambulance should be here soon."

"Yeah, the boy pushed both the younger ones away just in time. Too bad he didn't make it away."

"Onii-chan! Onii-chan! Please wake up, please be ok..." two kids were crying and shouting a few feet away.

Mei looked towards that direction and what he saw crushed his heart and soul. Time froze for an instant as the image processed in his head. Everything around him suddenly grew big, the people watching towered over him like a forest, their voices like a pounding jack hammer. He was suffocating, he couldn't breathe, his body was frozen. What he felt at that instant was as if being squeezed by two walls, coming closer and closer.

He snapped back into reality as a cold chill swept up his spine. Suddenly, he sprinted towards the fallen teen, squeezing through the massive amount of people blocking his way.

Once at the front of the crowd, where he saw two little kids crying and one teen laying face flat on the ground, his heart stopped as his blood ran cold.

"E-E-Ei-jun..." the teen's name escaped Mei's lips in a soft unbelievable tone as he reached out his hand in disbelief towards Sawamura. Mei stumbled forward a bit, then collapsed onto his knees. "Ei-jun..."

Mei looked at the bloodstained unconscious younger pitcher. The air conditioner had landed and crushed Sawamura's left arm completely and a metal bar pierced through his back at where the right lung would be. Blood was pooling the ground around his left arm, chest, and head. As Mei knelt down, his had landed on the shallow pool of the warm, yet quickly cooling blood.

"EIJUN!" Mei shouted as reality hit him head on like a train. "Wake up! Eijun, please wake up, it's Mei!" the fervent pitcher screamed at the top of his lungs in hopes his voice could reach the unconscious.

Mei carefully, in fear of breaking the already injured pitcher, reached for Sawamura's right hand and grasped it with all his might._ 'He's getting cold…no…this isn't happening…no…'_

"Please...please wake up..." Mei pleaded as tears started to spontaneously erupt from his eyes. He began sniffing and the occasional sob broke out. His heart sank further until it reached the pits of his stomach.

"Everything would be all right...the ambulance is coming...please wake up..." Mei pleaded again, a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

As if his prayers were answered, Sawamura's eyes started to open.

"M...m...ei..." Sawamura whispered in a weaken tone. Speaking was hard, his lung was punctured, so every breath, every word spoken shot a surge of pain through his body.

'_Arrgh…it hurts…'_ Sawamura didn't want to say it out as he caught a glimpse of Mei's worried façade. _'What's happening…where's the pain coming from…' _he was positioned in a way that he couldn't see his injuries. He tried to get up, but his body collapsed extinguishing itself all his strength before he could even move a millimeter.

"Eijun...shhh...don't speak...everything will be all right..." Mei tried to console the pitcher, but he was having a hard time himself keeping his tears from spilling out and his worries subdued.

"So...sor...ry...Mei..." the injured pitcher spoke as coughs of blood erupted. Blood came spluttering out his mouth as his lungs started to fill with blood. Sawamura felt his time ending. He weekly squeezed Mei's hand with his right hand in order to grasp what little time he had left with the one he loved.

"Eijun, everything's going to be ok...you'll be fine…" Mei's voice started to crack as frequent cries escaped. "...stay…with me..." Mei whispered, he too squeezed Sawamura's hand securely, afraid that if he didn't, Sawamura would slip away from him forever.

"I...I...*cough*..." Sawamura tried to talk, but coughs erupted again. A trail of blood dripped consistently from the corner of his mouth as his lungs started to flood in a thin layer of blood. Breathing was getting difficult and heavier pants were heard.

Mei placed his other hand on Sawamura's head and leaned his head closer, his thumb started to caress the pitcher, softly moving the slightly bloodstained hair around. "Don't speak Eijun, preserve your strength, everything's going to be ok, I'm here for you..." Mei bit his lips as he tried to stop his sobs from escaping. "...don't...don't leave me..." once again, tears found their way down Mei's face as he broke down.

Sawamura saw the pain that Mei was going through and tears of his own rolled down his bloodied face. His heart ached from emotional pain of seeing his beloved in such a state.

"M-mei...I...re...re..." Sawamura's breathing became more staggered and harder. Breathing was getting difficult, each breath taken felt as if a sword was piercing his chest into his lungs, causing new incisions. "...re...mem...ber..." Sawamura finally forced the words out through his pained stricken body.

Mei stared at Sawamura in astonishment. "You...remembered...?" Mei's eyes glistened with a fresh layer of tears, which blurred his vision. He quickly rubbed his eyes with his sleeves to clear his obstructed vision.

The weak pitcher nodded his head slightly. "...I...I..." Sawamura fought to say the words, but fatigue and pain slowly overruled his body, his body felt colder and heavier; it was harder for him to move. "...lo...ve..." his voice was diminishing with each syllable spoken. Sawamura's eye lids were getting heavier as he vehemently fought to stay awake. "...you..." the last words came out of his mouth as darkness shrouded over his entirety.

Mei looked at Sawamura in shock. "Eijun..." Mei called out while nudging the injured pitcher slightly. "Eijun...wake up..." Mei pleaded as he lightly shook Sawamura's body. "...please wake up...don't joke around…" Mei kept calling out to Sawamura like a small lost child would to a parent. "...p-pl...ease..." Mei broke and started bawling in the streets as Sawamura became unresponsive.

* * *

><p><strong>- A couple years later -<strong>

"Strike! Batter out!" the umpire called. It was the ninth inning and Mei was pitching on the mound. Beads of sweat dripped down Mei's face as the scorching sun shone down on him. He was tired, having pitched nearly nine innings.

"Time." Miyuki called out, which the umpire acknowledged. He quickly ran up to the mound to where Mei was.

"Are you ok? Can you do it?" Miyuki asked in concern to the tired pitcher.

It had been two years. Both the once second year high schoolers had graduated and by luck had joined the same professional baseball team. After a full year of training, they had their first debut game together as a battery.

"Of course, who do you think you're talking to?" Mei said confidently while he gave a high and mighty look.

"You're about to pitch a perfect game, you know Sawamura's watching you from somewhere, you don't' wanna screw it up now…" Miyuki said, taking a stab at Mei.

"Yeah...I won't let Eijun down..." Mei looked up towards the bright sun. _'Eijun…I wish you could be here…'_

"Ok then, one last batter!" Miyuki ran back to the plate and positioned himself.

"Strike one!" the crowd grew wild as Mei was two pitches from a perfect game.

"You better hit the next one, else your down to one last hit and your team's gonna lose to a perfect game." Miyuki did what he did second best, taunting the batter.

"Be quiet, I'll get the next one for sure." the batter sneered back at Miyuki.

Mei began his pitching motion and the batter took a swing.

"Strike two!"

"Ha, you know...that was a ball you just took a swing at." Miyuki chuckled.

_'Damn that pitcher's control...'_ The batter then looked at Miyuki. _'Curse this catcher...I played right into his hands...'_

Mei stared down the plate, readying himself for the last pitch.

_***Flashback***_

_**The operation was complete, but the doctor came out with a grave look on his face. **_

_**"Doctor! How's Eijun?" Mei asked in worry, which was heightened by the grim face he received. His eyes were bloodshot red from all the crying, his clothing stained with Sawamura's blood. He was looking like a wreck. The Seidou baseball team was there as well, all anxious on the results. **_

_**"I'm sorry, I've done all I can. He's barely alive. It's up to him now, whether he can survive tonight." the doctor said in a consoling tone. "You can enter his room to see him, but please be careful. I've made a request for the hospital to allow most of you to stay in over the night."**_

_**Mei, along with a few members of the baseball team entered the room. It was silent, only the rhythmic beating of Sawamura's heart and the pumping of the oxygen machine could be heard.**_

_**Mei immediately ran over to Sawamura's bed side, knelt down and gently held the younger pitcher's right hand and pleaded, "Eijun...everything's going to be ok...please wake up...please..." Mei couldn't control his emotions as he started to erupt into quite sobs as tears dripped down his face again. The sight pained everyone and they too wept.**_

_***Flashback End***_

Mei started his pitching motion. Everyone in the stadium was holding their breath. It was silent. The batter placed a tighter grip on his bat and took a swing.

"STRIKEOUT!" the umpire called as the whole stadium erupted into cheers. Miyuki immediately ran up to the pitcher's mound and gave Mei a hug.

"You did it!" Miyuki said as the rest of the baseball team members ran up to Mei.

"I bet Eijun is proud of you." Miyuki noted.

Mei nodded in acknowledgement as a tear escaped his eyes.

"Haha, is Narumiya crying?" one member shouted.

"Shut up, I'm not crying!" Mei responded as he quickly wiped the tear away.

The team slowly made their way to the dugout.

_***Flashback***_

_**It was later into the night. Mei, Miyuki and a few Seidou guys stayed to watch over Sawamura. They all stayed up relentlessly staring at the unconscious pitcher. **_

_**Mei laid his head down next to Sawamura's arm, his hand clutching onto the unconscious pitcher's hand for dear life. "Sawamura...please wake up..." Mei whispered occasionally.**_

_**Everyone was in a half daze as the day crept into the late hours of the night. Suddenly, Mei felt Sawamura's hand twitch. **_

_**"EIJUN!" Mei shouted as he immediately shot up into a sitting position and stared at the injured pitcher. "Eijun! Please wake up..."**_

_**Everyone immediately got up and gathered around Mei from the sudden interruption into the quiet night. **_

_**"What's happening?" everyone asked in concern, fearing the doctor's words would become reality.**_

_**"I felt his hand twitch! Quickly call the doctor!" Mei shouted back as Chris quickly ran out the door in search of the doctor.**_

_**Sawamura then proceeded to open his eyes slowly. He moved his head slightly to look around and saw everyone there. He was light headed, his body in pain and vision blurry. **_

_**"Everyone...Mei..." he whispered through the oxygen mask as a single tear rolled down his face upon seeing everyone.**_

_**"Eijun!" "Sawamura!" the pitcher's name could be heard throughout the room.**_

_**Sawamura weakly smiled at everyone, his face was pale from the blood loss, his aura of liveliness was non-existent. "Mei…" Sawamura whispered again as his right hand gave Mei's hand a very weak squeeze, which Mei didn't go unnoticed. **_

_**Mei squeezed Sawamura's hand slightly to reassure Sawamura. "You're ok…everything's going to be ok Eijun…"**_

_**As Sawamura was about to speak, he suddenly erupted into a violent fit of coughs. The beeping of the heart monitor increased and without warning, Sawamura started coughing blood into his oxygen mask.**_

_***BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEEEEEP* the machine rang a flat tone and Sawamura fell limp on his bed.**_

_**"EIJUN?... EIJUN! WAKE UP!" Mei shouted in fear as he realised the state that Sawamura was in. **_

_**The doctor and nurse quickly rushed into the room and started to resuscitate the pitcher. They removed the oxygen mask from Sawamura and placed an ambu bag over Sawamura's mouth and nose, then hooked him up to a defibrillator. **_

_**A charge was heard. "Clear." The doctor said as a shock rang through the room. Sawamura's body jumped slightly, but the solid beep from the heart machine was still present. They spent nearly an hour trying to resuscitate Sawamura, but to no avail. **_

_**"4:08am death..." the doctor solemnly, but hesitantly, said.**_

_**"NO...NO...HE'S NOT DEAD YET...KEEP TRYING..." Mei shouted as he burst into tears. Mei grabbed the doctor in attempt to force him back to saving Sawamura.**_

_**"I'm sorry, we've done all we can..." the doctor replied.**_

_**Mei continued to beg as he fell onto his knees. "Please doctor...pl..pleaseee..." **_

_**Miyuki quickly ran over to help the pitcher up on to a seat.**_

_**"No...this isn't happening!" Mei quickly ran to Sawamura and continued to give him CPR. Everyone watched as the broken pitcher tried to save his loved one.**_

_**"Please...please come back...Eijun..." Mei continued for the remainder of the night.**_

_***Flashback End***_

As the memories flooded into Mei, a few drops of tears rolled down his face.

Miyuki caught sight of them and put his arm around the pitcher's shoulders to console him.

"I'm sure Sawamura's proud of you." Miyuki whispered, which gained a nod from Mei.

"Hahah look at Mei crying." commented another person as the team made their way to the locker room.

"He must be happy to have pitched a perfect game on his debut game!"

After showering and changing, Mei headed out the locker room and made his way up to the top floor of the stadium and stood near the edge overlooking the entire stadium. _'Eijun...I'll see you soon...' _Me thought as he looked down at the baseball diamond below. He leaned forward, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"MEI!" Miyuki shouted from behind.

Mei quickly opened his eyes and looked behind him.

"What are you doing here?" Miyuki asked out of curiosity.

"I was just reflecting back, wishing that Eijun was here too..." Mei meekly said.

"I'm sure his spirit is here with you..." Miyuki tried to cheer up the pitcher.

"Well it's different than him being physically here!" Mei pouted.

Miyuki placed a hand on Mei's shoulders, "It's ok..."

The two made their way out of the stadium after saying their goodbyes to the remaining teammates and got on a bus to go to the hospital.

"Is your arm all better?" Miyuki asked.

"Hell yeah, you saw me pitch just now!" Mei smiled in triumph.

_'At least he can still smile and joke around…his ego seems as big as ever…'_ Miyuki gave an exasperated look. "You have a checkup with the doctor today right?"

"Yup, check with him every quarter just to make sure everything's good. And I saw that look you gave me!" Mei replied.

"That's good." Miyuki just pretended to not hear the last part.

Once they got to the hospital, Mei led the way. He was walking fast, he would have ran, but would have been reprimanded for doing so, so he opted to walk, speed walk.

"Hey Mei...aren't you suppose to..." Miyuki tried to call Mei out, but Mei paid no attention to Miyuki. With a sigh of defeat, he followed Mei. _'I guess he'll never change...'_

Mei walked to the rehabilitation ward and stood outside the sports clinic, looking in. There, he saw Sawamura working hard, lifting weights, slowly and carefully.

_***Flashback***_

_**"Please...please..." Mei kept pushing the dead pitcher's chest up and down. He had been going at it for 30 minutes, but he wouldn't give up as hope dwindled deep within the older pitcher.**_

_**Everyone watched Mei, unable to bring themselves to stop him. The doctor and nurse stood there, even though he pronounced Sawamura dead, he had hoped deep within that Mei could bring the young pitcher back.**_

_**Mei kept pushing, his body was tired, hands were getting numb, but nothing matter. Others tried to offer to help, but Mei didn't want to stop himself. Tears were flowing endlessly as they started to drench Mei's hands and Sawamura's chest in a minute puddle. **_

_**"Ei-jun...please...wake up...I-I...love...you...don't leave...me..." Mei cried the words out as his body and soul was slowly getting torn to pieces.**_

_**"Please, I'll do anything...just wake up...I'll do anything you ask...Eijun..." Mei begged.**_

"_**perfect...game..." came a weak whisper.**_

_**Mei's eyes grew as his now acute hearing caught the whisper. He stared at Sawamura, who seem to still be unconscious, but then a rhythmic beat echoed through the room again. Mei quickly turned his head towards the heart monitor and saw a pulse show up.**_

_**"DOCTOR! Eijun has a pulse!" Mei happily said in a tear stained face.**_

_**The doctor quickly rushed over to check the unconscious pitcher out.**_

* * *

><p><em><strong>- A week later -<strong>_

_**"Well Sawamura-kun, you seem to be recovering very well. And for a good while there, you were actually dead. You have Narumiya-kun here to thank for keeping your heart going." the doctor said.**_

_**Sawamura, still bed ridden, looked towards Mei and gave the older pitcher a big smile. "Thank you Mei...I love you..." **_

_**Mei looked at the weak feeble pitcher thanking him. 'Oh man, he's so cute...' he thought as his legs weakened causing him to collapse next to Sawamura. Mei quickly grabbed Sawamura's hand and held it up against his own face. "I love you too Eijun..."he said as he snuggled his face into Sawamura's hands.**_

_**Sawamura looked at Mei holding his right hand, then took a glance at his left hand, which was immobile and bandaged up. He was taking pain killers to subdue the pain, but he knew his left arm, his pitching arm, was in bad shape.**_

_**"Say doctor...how long will it take my left arm to heal?" Sawamura hesitantly asked.**_

_**"I'd give it about two months, you should be able to do simple things again with some rehabilitation." the doctor replied.**_

_**"Great! How long would it take for me to pitch again?" Sawamura asked in a happy tone.**_

_**The doctor looked over at Mei, then back at Sawamura. **_

_**"Sawamura-kun..." the doctor knelt down and placed his hand on top of Sawamura's head. "I'm sorry...your left hand would never be the dominant hand again. You could probably catch a ball, but won't be able to throw like you did before..." the doctor gravely said. "I'm sorry..."**_

_**The doctor stroked Sawamura's hair, readying himself for Sawamura's reaction to the news. Mei also braced himself.**_

_**A slight chuckle erupted from Sawamura, "Heh...well I'm still alive, so I can't really complain..."**_

_**All went silent after that statement. Both Mei and the doctor were shocked at how Sawamura was taking it.**_

"_**Are you ok?" the doctor asked Sawamura.**_

"_**Yup!" Sawamura cheerfully said.**_

_**"Well…I'll leave you two alone." the doctor said as he took his leave.**_

_**"Eijun..." Mei spoke up. "Are you ok?"**_

_**"Yup!" Sawamura gave Mei a big smile. "You heard the doc, he said I would still be able to catch with my left hand!" **_

_**Mei hesitantly smiled back. **_

_**"Ummm Mei...I'm feeling tired...can...can you..." Sawamura didn't know how to ask Mei to leave properly, as he had never wanted Mei gone before, but Mei caught the clue.**_

_**"Yeah, I'm feeling tired too, maybe I'll head home now...see you tomorrow?" Mei quickly asked.**_

_**"Yup, sounds good." Sawamura nodded as he replied.**_

_**"Eijun...I love you..." Mei said as he leaned in to kiss Sawamura on the forehead. He then headed out the room.**_

_**"I love you too Mei." **_

_**Mei walked out the room, but was still worried about Sawamura. 'I better wait a bit...he's never asked me to leave before...I hope he's ok...' Mei had some sight of the pitcher from outside the room, so he stood there.**_

_**Sawamura laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a few good minutes. No movement was detected. **_

_**'Is he asleep?' Mei couldn't see whether Sawamura's eyes were opened or not, so he decided to leave; however, as he did, a sob broke out from inside the room. Mei looked back in from a distance.**_

_**Sawamura started to cry. His right hand was hovered over his left arm. His chest felt constricted. He was lost, his baseball life was over, he didn't know what to do. He laid there crying, tears rolling down his face as he stared aimlessly at his broken left arm. "It's over…" a soft broken voice spoke.**_

_**Mei watched from outside as tears of his own rolled down his face. He too grabbed his left arm, feeling the pain that Sawamura was going through. 'I'm an ass...here I was complaining about my arm injury when it was curable...' Mei remembered the time when he chastised Sawamura for caring, which lead to today's events. "I'm sorry Eijun..." Mei bit his lips to stop a sob from escaping. He slowly backed into the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the ground. Digging his head into his knees, he stayed there weeping. **_

_**The two pitchers cried their eyes out for the remainder of the day until sleep swept them off.**_

_***Flashback End***_

"Mei...are you ok?" Miyuki asked as he noticed Mei standing in front of the door, not entering.

"Yeah, yeah...just remembering some stuff..." Mei replied as he quickly wiped away a couple tears.

"Well lets go in, your appointment should be coming up soon, so you gotta make this quick." Miyuki pushed Mei through the door.

Sawamura was halfway through in lifting his weights when he noticed Mei come in.

"MEI!" Sawamura shouted as he quickly dropped the weights onto the rubber flooring.

"SAWAMURA-KUN!" the therapist shouted. "How many times do I have to tell you to not drop the weights like that..."

"I'm sorry..." Sawamura inadvertently gave an apologetic puppy dog look, which melted the therapist's anger away.

"It's ok...just try to remember not to do it again..." the defeated therapist said, which sparked a smile on Sawamura's face.

"Yup, I won't do it again!"

As Mei walked in, Sawamura quickly ran over and gave the older pitcher a hug.

"Congratulations on the perfect game!" Sawamura shouted.

"See I told you he was watching..." Miyuki commented. "Sawamura...you're not going to congratulate me too? I was catching the whole game you know..." Miyuki playfully said.

"Who are you?" Sawamura peered over Mei's shoulders to look at Miyuki.

Miyuki then grabbed Sawamura in a head lock and started rubbing his head. "Why you!"

"I'm sorry! Congratulations on the game Miyuki!" Sawamura quickly apologised.

"So, how's the rehab going?" Mei asked in curiousity. Recently he and Miyuki had focused on their debut game, so they didn't have much time to follow up on Sawamura's progress.

"It's great, my left arm is a lot better, I can use it for general things now and it's gaining strength. I should be able to catch baseballs with it in maybe a month!" the optimistic pitcher said. His rehab was proceeding very well, but then again, Sawamura had invested every single minute outside of school into baseball and rehabilitating his arm.

"I've been pitching with my right arm as well and I think I'm throwing better with it than my left!" Sawamura said proudly.

Mei and Miyuki both had sweat drops, but they could see how focused Sawamura was in getting back into baseball.

"I'm also doing club activities at school too...and the coach said I might be able to pitch in some games before I graduate." Sawamura smiled.

"That's great!" Mei commented. "I want to see you pitch in a game again...and you better come to the professionals!"

"I will..." Sawamura was reluctant in saying so, "...I hope..."

"You will! However long the rehab takes, you'll get there! Plus...I'll be here to support you!" Mei said which Sawamura smiled to. "I'm here for you..." Mei whispered.

Miyuki looked at Sawamura and questioned what the cause of reluctance was.

"Hey Mei, can I have some time with Sawamura?" Miyuki asked.

Mei shot a dirty look at Miyuki. _'You want to be ALONE with MY Eijun? What are you playing at Kazuya?'_

Miyuki shot a dirty look back at Mei. _'Stop thinking perverted things you pervert!'_

Mei immediately got the message. _'Grrrrr...' _he knew deep down that Miyuki and Sawamura were very good friends, but his protectiveness gets to him once in a while.

"Fineeeeee..." Mei said in defeat with a pout, but before Sawamura left with Miyuki, Mei took the younger pitcher into an embrace and gave him a long kiss.

Miyuki walked Sawamura to the corner of the room, where they could have a quite conversation.

"Eijun..." Miyuki said.

This caught Sawamura by surprise, as Miyuki rarely uses his name. It got the pitcher jumpy.

"Did...I do something wrong?" Sawamura asked.

"Hah, no you didn't." Miyuki got a good laugh out of doing this once in a while. "Are you worried about getting into professionals?"

Sawamura stood there and thought for a second. He didn't want Miyuki or Mei to worry much about him, so he kept his worries and problems to himself. "Yeah, I just don't know if I can pitch well enough with my right arm and whether my left arm would be good enough to play at all."

"Eijun, your rehab is going well, and you've been practising pitching with your right arm every day since you've come out of the hospital. I've talked to the coach and he said you were doing really well." Miyuki reaffirmed Sawamura's progress.

Sawamura nodded his head.

"There's other problems aren't there?" Miyuki asked in concern.

Sawamura looked up in shock. "Of course not, that's it!"

"Eijun...I can read you like a book, don't treat me like that baka over there..." Miyuki pointed a finger towards Mei who then immediately sneezed. "...If you're not willing to tell me, I'm going to take a stab at it..."

Sawamura just stared at the ground, not responding.

"Ok then, sorry if I get it wrong, but...you're worried that your baseball skills aren't up to par for the professionals, aren't you?" Miyuki threw the question out there.

The younger pitcher immediately froze, his body was stiff, Miyuki had hit the bullseye. A slight nod was then seen.

"Hah, baaaaaaakaaaaa." Miyuki laughed, which caused Sawamura to twitch.

"What's so funny? And I'm not an idiot!" a semi-hurt pitcher asked.

"Ok, let me ask you this...do you think...hmmm...Yuki-onii-chaaaama..." Miyuki dragged out Tetsuya's nickname in that fashion on purpose. Sawamura immediately started blushing from the recollection of his princess days.

"Miyuki! Get to the point..."

"Fine fine...do you think Tetsuya is good enough for the professionals?"

Sawamura nodded, "Of course!"

"Well you know how he was in his first year?"

Sawamura didn't.

"Well he couldn't even catch a ball properly." Miyuki told the pitcher.

"So what's that got to do with me?"

"Over the years at Seidou, he practised and practised and got to where he was when you met him." Miyuki reasoned.

Sawamura nodded his head in understanding.

"I remember back three years ago, when I first saw a cocky brat come to Seidou in his child like attitude and claimed to be able to pitch, I was laughing my butt off." Miyuki playfully said.

Sawamura twitched at the names Miyuki was calling him. "Hey, if I recall, you were a lazy cocky no good for nothing brat as well."

"Now now, let's not call names..." Miyuki waved Sawamura's comment off nonchalantly.

"So, as I was saying, I first thought that this brat was just all talk, but do you remember the first ball you threw into my mitt, the sound it made?" Miyuki pushed on.

Sawamura stood there in silence, recollecting every moment of that, his life changing experience which made him decide to come to Seidou. "Yeah..."

"Now, you know that I'm dubbed a genius right?" Miyuki gave the biggest smile he could.

"What's your point? You're also dubbed sneaky, lazy, no good..." Sawamura plainly shot back listing out negative attributes while recalling every time Miyuki made fun of him.

"Geez...anyways, yeah that throw was shitty…" Miyuki said, which caused Sawamura to fall into a depressed state. "…BUT what I saw back then was potential, and that's what I see right now too. Not only me, Chris-senpai also saw your potential, now isn't that enough? Two geniuses saw what you could do, and we were there to help you achieve it...if you didn't have the accident, by the time you got to your third year, I guarantee you that you would have been the ace, of course, with me as your catcher, we could have won Koshien, but since we're in different years, I'm sure you would have gotten close to winning." Miyuki jeered while saying the last comment.

"Are you here to help me or put me down?" Sawamura shot back.

"The last part was a joke..." Miyuki put on a serious face. _'Man...he can't take a joke can he...'_

Miyuki then placed his hand on Sawamura's shoulders. "Eijun...you've got what it takes...don't ever doubt yourself...keep at it and you'll reach your goal...I've talked to the coach, and sadly he tells me that your right arm pitches better than your left...how that's possible I don't know...maybe because you have the drive to get into the professional world...I'm sure you can do it..."

Sawamura looked at Miyuki, a tear crept out his eyes as he was touched by Miyuki's comments.

"Kazuya! You made Eijun cry!" Mei quickly jumped in as he suddenly appeared next to the two.

"I thought I told you I wanted to talk to Sawamura alone!" Miyuki said, slightly annoyed.

Mei reached over and caressed the tear off Sawamura's eyes. "He's right Eijun...you can ask anyone on Inashiro...they think you're one hell of an opponent...and so do I..." Mei whispered the last part as he blushed and turned his gaze away from Sawamura and Miyuki.

Both Miyuki and Sawamura's interest immediately perked.

"What was that?" Miyuki pretended not to catch it. "Did the self-proclaimed best pitcher acknowledge someone else?" Miyuki nonchalantly said.

"So what?" Mei's face got red for other reasons as he placed his face directly in front of Miyuki's.

"Well with that big head of yours, I'm surprise you could, then again...you did beg me to go to Inashiro once before, so I guess your head isn't that big..." Miyuki said with a smirk.

"I didn't beg you! I rather die than beg you." Mei argued back.

Sawamura then started to chuckle as the two fought, which immediately caused them to redirect their attention.

"What's so funny?" both of them said in unison.

"Nothing...it's just that..." Sawamura paused to think of the word to describe his feeling. "...I'm happy." he said with a big smile. He raised his left hand to chest level, squeezed it into a fist, stared at it, then back to the two.

"I'll meet you guys in the professionals, promise!" He held his fist out and the other two bumped fists with him in acknowledgement.

"We know you will." Miyuki replied. "Now Mei, we gotta get you to your appointment before you're late. We'll leave you to your session Sawamura!" Miyuki said as he pushed the hesitant Mei out of the room.

"Thank you, Kazuya!" Sawamura shouted.

_'He called me Kazuya...' _Miyuki got a shock from hearing Sawamura call his name. Miyuki shouted back, "Heh...anyways...if I knew your right arm was better at throwing, I would have broken your left arm earlier, hahahah." Miyuki threw in the joke.

"You had to kill the moment didn't you?" Sawamura pouted, but deep within, he was overjoyed with everything he had, great friends and the best boyfriend one could ask. _'I'll get there one day...'_

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: And that's that. I hope everyone enjoyed reading this story. Until next time!

This is the last major chapter for this story.

I'm contemplating on writing one more chapter, but it's going to be about how Mei/Sawamura kicked it off and how they got caught.

Again, thanks for all those who've reviewed!~~~ Very much appreciated!


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